Languagehttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/language
en-usTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:06:22 -0500Tue, 03 Mar 2015 18:06:22 -0500The latest news on Language from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-well-never-be-able-to-change-the-ridiculously-complicated-spelling-system-of-the-english-language-2015-3Why we'll never be able to change the ridiculously complicated spelling system of the English languagehttp://www.businessinsider.com/why-well-never-be-able-to-change-the-ridiculously-complicated-spelling-system-of-the-english-language-2015-3
Tue, 03 Mar 2015 16:51:25 -0500Nathaniel Swain
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54f6294b69bedd542bd23755-1200-924/gokul-spelling-bee-speller-1.png" border="0" alt="gokul spelling bee speller"></p><p>My 11-year-old student sighs. How can the same letters make so many different sounds? We are looking at the letter combination “ough”, which can be read in seven different ways: “through”, “thorough”, “although”, “plough”, “thought”, “cough” and “rough”.</p>
<p>Certain movements around the English-speaking world think our spelling system is just too difficult. In the UK, the <a href="http://spellingsociety.org/about-us">English Spelling Society</a> has <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/10849813/English-spelling-room-for-improvement.html">renewed calls for spelling reform</a>. They want to change words with extraneous letters and make it easier to spell.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-30698266">The society proposes</a> spellings like “wensday”, “crum”, “cof”, “distres” and “milenium”. For some, including me, these suggestions produce a visceral reaction; others may see this as progress.</p>
<p>This isn’t the first time groups have sought to artificially alter the spelling of English, and it won’t be the last. But these attempts are counter-productive to improving the literacy skills of struggling students.</p>
<h2>Is it really that hard?</h2>
<p>As a speech-language pathologist, I help many young people who are yet to grasp expected literacy skills for their age. They are usually amazed that English spelling is this complicated.</p>
<p>English does have a complex spelling system (or orthography). In Australia, we have 44 unique sounds that make up words, but only 26 letters to represent them. To solve this imbalance, English spellers use “graphemes”, which include both single letters and letter combinations to represent these sounds. This helps us spell sounds like the “ch” in “choose”, “ng” in “king”, “ee” in “street” and the “ire” in “fire”.</p>
<p>This system is not perfect, however. Graphemes can be pronounced differently in multiple words, as in the “ough” example. One speech sound can also be spelt with multiple graphemes, like the vowel sound in “horse”, “haunt”, “court”, “caught” and “store”. English also has many irregularly spelt words that have to be learnt by sight, like “debt”, “know” and “yacht”.</p>
<p>Old-fashioned spelling rules further complicate things, rather than solve these problems. “I before e except after c” works for only a handful of words. It has so many exceptions (like the words “science”, “sufficient”, “seize”, “weird” or “vein”) it is a rule we could do without.</p>
<p>You can see why some students find it difficult! English’s spelling complexity does make it harder. The rate of dyslexia in countries like Italy is <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3878269">half of what it is in the US</a>. Research suggests that this is because “decoding” English is much harder than in a language with a <a href="www.drru-research.org/data/resources/42/Paulesu-et-al-2001.pdf">more consistent spelling system</a> like Italian.</p>
<p>It is understandable why some people see that English’s spelling system is to blame for literacy difficulties. It is less clear how they think creating a whole new system will solve the problem.</p>
<h2>Attempts to ‘fix’ the English spelling system</h2>
<p>In the early 20th century, the US <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F02E5D6103EE733A25751C1A9659C946797D6CF&amp;amp;scp=1">Simplified Spelling Board</a> built upon the work of Noel Webster (of the Webster dictionaries) to bring about the now American spellings of words such as “jail”, “honor”, “center”, “analog” and “jewelry”.</p>
<p>The equivalent in the UK, the <a href="http://spellingsociety.org/about-us">English Spelling Society</a>, admits it has not achieved much since its founding in 1908, with the last spelling reform bill of 1953 failing to take off. Nevertheless, it is planning an international conference for spelling reformers this year, where they <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11355073/Conference-aims-to-replace-English-spelling-system.html">hope to get the ball rolling</a> again.</p>
<h2>Why ‘fixing’ the spelling system is a lost cause</h2>
<p>Language is alive, in that it constantly evolves as humans use it to communicate. Hence it is highly social. Functionality and popularity are what determine acceptable spellings and additions to English.</p>
<p>Even in the last few years, English has changed dramatically. Today, we share something we just <em>googled</em>, by <em>tweeting</em> it to our friends, while our iPod is <em>syncing</em>. The teenagers of today are experiencing <em>FOMO</em>, so they <em>totes</em> save time by <em>txting</em> “<em>lol thnx</em>” and spend more time <em>Facebook-stalking</em> their <em>besties</em>.</p>
<p>New words and spellings creep into our language, and dictionaries just have to keep up. Change comes from how we use language, not how a group of concerned elders think we should be using it.</p>
<p>Language has the dispositions of a teenager; it always follows the crowd. So attempts to cosmetically alter our language through the spelling system are not only misguided, but also futile.</p>
<h2>What about people who struggle?</h2>
<p>Although more difficult for some, proficiency in English spelling is attainable. If you can read this sentence you have to agree. The challenge of supporting struggling students is not solved through spelling reform, but through educational reform.</p>
<p>Currently, many students, especially in Australia, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-way-we-teach-most-children-to-read-sets-them-up-to-fail-36946#comments">do not benefit from evidence-based</a> literacy teaching. Low literacy skills then <a href="http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/assets/0002/3684/Literacy_changes_lives_2014.pdf">place young people at significantly higher risk</a> of unemployment, social exclusion, poor health and trouble with the law.</p>
<p>To improve literacy attainment, we should put our energy into ensuring that all students receive synthetic phonics (sound-based) instruction, which teaches the sound-letter patterns of English systematically. Trying to artificially change the spelling system to make it “easier” is simply a waste of time.</p>
<p>So when my students grumble about the problems with English spelling I remind them: spelling doesn’t come naturally; it requires hard work to learn. With appropriate support, the vast majority can learn English spelling – and as we use it, we all play a part in its (gradual) evolution.</p>
<p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/38027/count.gif" border="0" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1"></p>
<p>This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="http://theconversation.com/trying-to-change-englishs-complex-spelling-is-a-waste-of-time-38027">original article</a>.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bilingualism-helps-protect-brain-against-dementia-2015-1" >Here's why you should teach your kid a second language</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-well-never-be-able-to-change-the-ridiculously-complicated-spelling-system-of-the-english-language-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-persuasive-english-words-2014-9">The 4 Most Persuasive Words In The English Language</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-manage-people-in-other-countries-2015-3These fascinating diagrams reveal how to manage people in different countrieshttp://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-manage-people-in-other-countries-2015-3
Mon, 02 Mar 2015 18:35:00 -0500Kathleen Elkins
<p class="p1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54f4e315eab8eabd680c2458-949-712/japan-management.png" border="0" alt="japan management"></p><p>Japanese managers do their best to avoid telling anyone what to do.</p>
<p class="p1">This strategy, which is diagrammed on the right, is essential in a culture driven by honor, and it is possible thanks to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-culture-map-8-scales-for-work-2015-1">strong intuitive communication traits</a>.</p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In fact, every country has a unique management structure like this, according to</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;</span><a href="businessinsider.com/category/richard-lewis">linguist Richard Lewis</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, who has given us permission to publish the fascinating if sometimes mystifyingly complex management diagrams from "</span><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Cross-Cultural-Communication-A-Visual-Approach/dp/0953439836">Cross-Cultural Communication: A Visual Approach</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">."</span></p>
<p class="p1"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To hear Lewis speak,<a href="http://martingloballeaders.com/landingpage/business-insider/"> sign up for his talk on the challenges of going global </a>on April 22 in San Francisco, with a free webinar and article available for our readers.</span></p><h3>Argentine managers win over their staff with a "combination of intellectual argument and openly friendly stance."</h3>
<img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54ebb2f06bb3f76f5685da71-400-300/argentine-managers-win-over-their-staff-with-a-combination-of-intellectual-argument-and-openly-friendly-stance.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>"The Aussies want their boss to join them in a healthy disrespect for rules and formalism, to lapse into broad speech and cuss a bit, to be affable and ironic at the same time, and to avoid flowery or obscure expressions."</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54ebb2f0ecad044e701b8f71-400-300/the-aussies-want-their-boss-to-join-them-in-a-healthy-disrespect-for-rules-and-formalism-to-lapse-into-broad-speech-and-cuss-a-bit-to-be-affable-and-ironic-at-the-same-time-and-to-avoid-flowery-or-obscure-expressions.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><h3>Austrian managers use "a combination of folksy Austrian-accented German and sophisticated French loan-words."</h3>
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54ebb2ef6da811a175217171-400-300/austrian-managers-use-a-combination-of-folksy-austrian-accented-german-and-sophisticated-french-loan-words.jpg" alt="" />
<br/><br/><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-manage-people-in-other-countries-2015-3#brazilian-managers-are-very-concerned-with-cosiness-and-cheerfulness-freedom-of-expression-and-extroversion-and-sometimes-racial-harmony-4">See the rest of the story at Business Insider</a> http://www.businessinsider.com/translations-of-common-chinese-phrases-2015-218 Chinese expressions with bizarre literal translationshttp://www.businessinsider.com/translations-of-common-chinese-phrases-2015-2
Sat, 21 Feb 2015 09:19:00 -0500Melia Robinson and Melissa Stanger
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54d0ec3e6da8112b7662ab0c-480-/teacher-chinese-language-1.jpg" border="0" alt="teacher chinese language" width="480"></p><p>There are <a href="http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/12/how-difficult-is-it-to-learn-chinese/" target="_blank">more than 80,000 Chinese characters in existence</a>, though a non-native speaker can get by with 1,000 of the most commonly used ones.</p>
<p>To make matters more complicated, the characters that make up each word or phrase individually carry different meanings based on the context in which they're used. For example, the Chinese character 吃 could mean "eat," "drink," "bear," or "take," depending on the context.</p>
<p>Chinese is widely regarded as one of the hardest languages to learn, but it can also be incredibly poetic when translated character by character into English and, sometimes, hilarious. The Chinese New Year falls on February 19 this year — ring in the year of the sheep with these 18 Chinese phrases.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/52e6c08269bedddc5abafaf1-1200-924/chinese-fans-spectators-beijing-olympics-sports.jpg" border="0" alt="chinese fans spectators beijing olympics sports" width="480"></p>
<h3>A cheer (加油) becomes "add oil" or "add fuel."</h3>
<p>This all-purpose Chinese cheer, <em>jiayou!,</em> which literally means "add oil" or "add fuel," translates as a phrase to "Let's go!" or "Come on!"</p>
<p>The phrase could also be used to cheer up a sad friend, says Shiqi Liao, Chinese Language Coordinator in the East Asian Studies Department at New York University. The literal meaning of "add oil" is a metaphor, as in, to add fuel to the fire and get the engines going.</p>
<p>Gas stations are also called <em>jiayou</em> stops.</p>
<h3>"So-so" or "mediocre" (马马虎虎) becomes "horse horse tiger tiger."</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1309ks/til_many_phrases_in_english_come_from_literal/" target="_blank">The story goes</a> that there was once a lazy artist who only painted horses but was commissioned to paint a tiger. Trying to stick to what he knew, he illustrated a half-horse, half-tiger monstrosity. Since the painting was neither of a horse nor a tiger, it didn't sell.</p>
<p>The meaning of the phrase is that something is "horse horse tiger tiger" if it is neither one thing nor the other ("so-so").</p>
<p>In China, it is <a href="http://www.thatsmandarin.com/community/knowledge-base/33-knowledge-base/569-chinese-language-and-culture-horse-horse-tiger-tiger#.UuaFGWQo5-1" target="_blank">widely considered impolite to accept compliments</a>; so if a local tells you, "You speak excellent Mandarin," you can practice a little modesty with "horse horse tiger tiger."</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/52e6bb8eecad04993f01af9f-1200-924/chinese-china-coca-cola-coke.jpg" border="0" alt="chinese china coca-cola coke" width="480"></p>
<h3>"Coca-Cola" (可口可乐) becomes "tasty fun."</h3>
<p>When Coca-Cola was about to enter the Chinese market in the 1920s, the company chose characters that perfectly mimicked the English pronunciation of the product. Unfortunately, it translated to "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=tdY_N5gpOy4C&amp;pg=PA244&amp;dq=Bite+the+Wax+Tadpole&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=H5jmUvnONojgsAT9goDQDA&amp;ved=0CDMQ6wEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q=Bite%20the%20Wax%20Tadpole&amp;f=false" target="_blank">bite the wax tadpole</a>" or "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=tdY_N5gpOy4C&amp;pg=PA244&amp;dq=Bite+the+Wax+Tadpole&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=H5jmUvnONojgsAT9goDQDA&amp;ved=0CDMQ6wEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q=Bite%20the%20Wax%20Tadpole&amp;f=false" target="_blank">wax-flattened mare</a>."</p>
<p>They changed it to <em>Kěkǒukělě,</em> meaning "pleasurable to the mouth." It's marketing genius, according to Liao. The new name is very close in sound to the brand name "Coca-Cola," yet is also manages to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/picking-brand-names-china-2011-11" target="_blank">convey the brand's sense of taste and fun to a Chinese audience.</a></p>
<h3>"United States" (美国) becomes "Beautiful Country."</h3>
<p>Geographical names often take on a historical significance, such as this moniker for America the Beautiful. "There's this image of the United States as a beautiful, powerful, clever nation and I think that's the dominant sentiment," <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/china/experts/relations.html" target="_blank">said David Lampton</a>, director of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.</p>
<p>The U.S. isn't the only country with a <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/when-colloquial-chinese-meets-bad-english-translations-photos-1117044" target="_blank">name that attempts to reflect its culture</a>: <strong>England (英国) is "Brave Country," Afghanistan (阿富汗) is "Abundant Sweat," and Germany (德国) is "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=dYpHu_Bg4aQC&amp;pg=PA42&amp;lpg=PA42&amp;dq=germany+chinese+%22moral+country%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=93dS7R7k6W&amp;sig=3Wpw2vGeQi6Gn_o46mLiTkQEqjo&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=wsHrUtTwCc23sATYnYHwAw&amp;ved=0CDgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&amp;q=germany%20chinese%20%22moral%20country%22&amp;f=false" target="_blank">Moral Country</a>."</strong></p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54d0edeeeab8ea03167f56eb-1200-924/agave-plant.jpg" border="0" alt="agave plant" width="480"></p>
<h3>"Tequila" (龙舌兰酒) becomes "dragon tongue-shaped orchid."</h3>
<p>An appropriate name for a drink that burns as it goes down your throat, "dragon tongue-shaped orchid" also <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=2rRyHMBaU9gC&amp;pg=PA54&amp;lpg=PA54&amp;dq=tequila+dragon+tongue+orchid&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=zDfXecmyIU&amp;sig=KJ8ZTIBgEH_Bn5gnLTotMX6FU7Q&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=M6fmUtXGMNC1sATO14DgDw&amp;ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=tequila%20dragon%20tongue%20orchid&amp;f=false" target="_blank">describes</a> the pointed leaves of the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2013/05/03/five-ways-tequila-is-good-for-you/" target="_blank">blue agave plant</a> that is used as a main ingredient in tequila.</p>
<p>Fun fact: The Chinese government banned 100% blue agave tequila due to fears of its high methanol content, but President Xi <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23906661">lifted the ban last summer</a> after a visit to Mexico.</p>
<h3>"[I'm] sorry" (對不起) becomes "do not rise."</h3>
<p>"I'm sorry" could literally be translated as "do not rise," or "face not up." 對 by itself means "to face," while the last two characters 不起 by themselves mean "not up" or "not rise."</p>
<p>It's used metaphorically, says Liao, in that if you were to do someone wrong, you may not be able to face the person out of shame.</p>
<p>There are many other possible translations of this phrase, depending on the context, but "I'm sorry" is one of the most common ways to use it.</p>
<h3>"Stupid" or "lazy" (二百五) becomes "250."</h3>
<p>Calling someone "250" means they are stupid, as in someone who does something rashly without clearly thinking through it, says Liao, and the phrase can be used as a noun or an adjective.</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.transparent.com/chinese/culturalquirks/">Some people think</a> the origin of the phrase relates to an ancient Chinese unit of currency called a <em>diao</em> (弔). The Chinese scholars, being modest and humble, would call themselves 二百五, which is a quarter of a <em>diao.</em></p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52e7ceaf69bedd2b68afa2cb-800-600/green-hat-san-francisco.jpg" border="0" alt="Green Hat, San Francisco" width="480"></p>
<h3>"Being cheated on" or "being a cuckhold" (戴绿帽子) becomes "wear a green hat."</h3>
<p><a href="http://blogs.transparent.com/chinese/culturalquirks/">The story goes</a> that there was a man who worked long hours and left his wife at home. Bored, she started cheating on him. One morning the clueless husband put on his hat and left for work as usual, to find his neighbors pointing and laughing at him. It turned out the man had grabbed his wife's lover's hat — a green one — instead of his own.</p>
<p>The older generations in China typically still don't wear green hats because of this phrase. "Otherwise you open yourself to ridicule," says Liao.</p>
<h3>"Sexual harassment" (吃豆腐) becomes "eat tofu."</h3>
<p>"Culturally, food is a very important part of Chinese people's lives, so 'eat' the verb plays an important role in vocabulary," says Wenteng Shao, Language Lecturer of East Asian Studies at NYU, and the verb has different functions. For example,&nbsp;<strong>"suffer"&nbsp;(吃苦) becomes&nbsp;</strong><strong>"eating bitterness.</strong><strong>"</strong> This makes sense in the phrase meaning of the words, but what about "eating tofu"?</p>
<p>Tofu is known for having properties that promote beauty, and is often associated with women. "Beautiful women really are like tofu in many respects: white skin, shining smooth yet also elastic, delicate souls, gentle as jade..." <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal51/china3.pdf">according to a June 2003 column in the <em>Xinghua News</em></a>. So the tofu part of the phrase could refer to a woman attracting a man and, subsequently, sexual advances.</p>
<h3>"Computer" (电脑) becomes "electric brain."</h3>
<p>The first character, 电, is one of a handful of pictographic Chinese characters, which are drawn to look like their meaning. Its <a href="http://characters.cultural-china.com/84.html" target="_blank">strokes can be interpreted as</a>&nbsp;rain clouds about to shower and a bolt of lightning — but it's come to mean "electric" or "electricity" in modern usage.</p>
<p>The Chinese use 电 in an abundance of tech contexts, like for computer. <strong>Telephone (电话)&nbsp;becomes "electric words" and movie (电影) becomes "electric shadow."</strong></p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/52eab6746da81195573292fd-1200-924/screenshot-from-wind-flower-snow-moon.png" border="0" alt="Screenshot from Wind Flower Snow Moon" width="480"></p>
<h3>Trite language is described as "wind flower snow moon" (風花雪月).</h3>
<p>In <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=7OolnFbgs_IC&amp;pg=PA62&amp;lpg=PA62&amp;dq=wind+flower+snow+moon+theme&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=Ul6chTSs1L&amp;sig=7tO-5FdPQjWXtNcnkUgMbCo4eyw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=0KHqUuKQPPPJsQTW34IQ&amp;ved=0CDsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&amp;q=wind%20flower%20snow%20moon%20theme&amp;f=false" target="_blank">classical Chinese literature</a>, these earthy, thematic words were traditionally strung together to imply a romantic atmosphere or poetic images, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Ia03AAAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA108&amp;lpg=PA108&amp;dq=wind+flower+snow+moon+romantic&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=4QTrGzX-sl&amp;sig=sQwSaraGqsbcPzIcf9T3YlxKYzE&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=K6DqUqT_BsrNsQTPjoC4Cg&amp;ved=0CE8Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&amp;q=wind%20flower%20snow%20moon%20romantic&amp;f=false" target="_blank">describing an over-the-top gesture or mood</a>.</p>
<p>Today the phrase is more often used in the context of flowery, trite subjects; some would say the phrase most accurately describes&nbsp;"<a href="http://www.chinesedic.com/en/trite">effete language without substance</a>." It could also be used to describe someone with his head in the clouds.</p>
<h3>A threat or warning (给你点颜色看看) becomes "I will show you some color."</h3>
<p>The act of "showing color" to someone, when warning or threatening them, is metaphorical in one of two ways, Lao explains.</p>
<p>The first could be as in "I'm going to show you my <em>true</em> color," showing the person what you're made of; the "color" metaphor could also be taken one step further to imply black and blue, like a bruise, or red, like blood, if threatening physical violence.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/english/chinese/2013-06/18/content_549748.htm">Other sources suggest</a> that the color relates directly to the person who is angry, who could be "seeing red" or feeling hot-tempered.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/phrase-origins-that-are-wrong-2015-1" >The real stories behind 7 everyday expressions</a></strong></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/translations-of-common-chinese-phrases-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-cuban-on-fame-and-being-rich-2014-12">Mark Cuban: Here's The Hardest Part Of Being A Billionaire</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/translations-of-common-chinese-phrases-2015-218 Chinese expressions with bizarre literal translationshttp://www.businessinsider.com/translations-of-common-chinese-phrases-2015-2
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 11:08:00 -0500Melia Robinson and Melissa Stanger
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54d0ec3e6da8112b7662ab0c-480-/teacher-chinese-language-1.jpg" border="0" alt="teacher chinese language" width="480"></p><p>There are <a href="http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2011/12/how-difficult-is-it-to-learn-chinese/" target="_blank">more than 80,000 Chinese characters in existence</a>, though a non-native speaker can get by with 1,000 of the most commonly used ones.</p>
<p>To make matters more complicated, the characters that make up each word or phrase individually carry different meanings based on the context in which they're used. For example, the Chinese character 吃 could mean "eat," "drink," "bear," or "take," depending on the context.</p>
<p>Chinese is widely regarded as one of the hardest languages to learn, but it can also be incredibly poetic when translated character by character into English and, sometimes, hilarious. The Chinese New Year falls on February 19 this year — ring in the year of the sheep with these 18 Chinese phrases.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/52e6c08269bedddc5abafaf1-1200-924/chinese-fans-spectators-beijing-olympics-sports.jpg" border="0" alt="chinese fans spectators beijing olympics sports" width="480"></p>
<h3>A cheer (加油) becomes "add oil" or "add fuel."</h3>
<p>This all-purpose Chinese cheer, <em>jiayou!,</em> which literally means "add oil" or "add fuel," translates as a phrase to "Let's go!" or "Come on!"</p>
<p>The phrase could also be used to cheer up a sad friend, says Shiqi Liao, Chinese Language Coordinator in the East Asian Studies Department at New York University. The literal meaning of "add oil" is a metaphor, as in, to add fuel to the fire and get the engines going.</p>
<p>Gas stations are also called <em>jiayou</em> stops.</p>
<h3>"So-so" or "mediocre" (马马虎虎) becomes "horse horse tiger tiger."</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1309ks/til_many_phrases_in_english_come_from_literal/" target="_blank">The story goes</a> that there was once a lazy artist who only painted horses but was commissioned to paint a tiger. Trying to stick to what he knew, he illustrated a half-horse, half-tiger monstrosity. Since the painting was neither of a horse nor a tiger, it didn't sell.</p>
<p>The meaning of the phrase is that something is "horse horse tiger tiger" if it is neither one thing nor the other ("so-so").</p>
<p>In China, it is <a href="http://www.thatsmandarin.com/community/knowledge-base/33-knowledge-base/569-chinese-language-and-culture-horse-horse-tiger-tiger#.UuaFGWQo5-1" target="_blank">widely considered impolite to accept compliments</a>; so if a local tells you, "You speak excellent Mandarin," you can practice a little modesty with "horse horse tiger tiger."</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/52e6bb8eecad04993f01af9f-1200-924/chinese-china-coca-cola-coke.jpg" border="0" alt="chinese china coca-cola coke" width="480"></p>
<h3>"Coca-Cola" (可口可乐) becomes "tasty fun."</h3>
<p>When Coca-Cola was about to enter the Chinese market in the 1920s, the company chose characters that perfectly mimicked the English pronunciation of the product. Unfortunately, it translated to "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=tdY_N5gpOy4C&amp;pg=PA244&amp;dq=Bite+the+Wax+Tadpole&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=H5jmUvnONojgsAT9goDQDA&amp;ved=0CDMQ6wEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q=Bite%20the%20Wax%20Tadpole&amp;f=false" target="_blank">bite the wax tadpole</a>" or "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=tdY_N5gpOy4C&amp;pg=PA244&amp;dq=Bite+the+Wax+Tadpole&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=H5jmUvnONojgsAT9goDQDA&amp;ved=0CDMQ6wEwAg#v=onepage&amp;q=Bite%20the%20Wax%20Tadpole&amp;f=false" target="_blank">wax-flattened mare</a>."</p>
<p>They changed it to <em>Kěkǒukělě,</em> meaning "pleasurable to the mouth." It's marketing genius, according to Liao. The new name is very close in sound to the brand name "Coca-Cola," yet is also manages to <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/picking-brand-names-china-2011-11" target="_blank">convey the brand's sense of taste and fun to a Chinese audience.</a></p>
<h3>"United States" (美国) becomes "Beautiful Country."</h3>
<p>Geographical names often take on a historical significance, such as this moniker for America the Beautiful. "There's this image of the United States as a beautiful, powerful, clever nation and I think that's the dominant sentiment," <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/china/experts/relations.html" target="_blank">said David Lampton</a>, director of China Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.</p>
<p>The U.S. isn't the only country with a <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/when-colloquial-chinese-meets-bad-english-translations-photos-1117044" target="_blank">name that attempts to reflect its culture</a>: <strong>England (英国) is "Brave Country," Afghanistan (阿富汗) is "Abundant Sweat," and Germany (德国) is "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=dYpHu_Bg4aQC&amp;pg=PA42&amp;lpg=PA42&amp;dq=germany+chinese+%22moral+country%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=93dS7R7k6W&amp;sig=3Wpw2vGeQi6Gn_o46mLiTkQEqjo&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=wsHrUtTwCc23sATYnYHwAw&amp;ved=0CDgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&amp;q=germany%20chinese%20%22moral%20country%22&amp;f=false" target="_blank">Moral Country</a>."</strong></p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54d0edeeeab8ea03167f56eb-1200-924/agave-plant.jpg" border="0" alt="agave plant" width="480"></p>
<h3>"Tequila" (龙舌兰酒) becomes "dragon tongue-shaped orchid."</h3>
<p>An appropriate name for a drink that burns as it goes down your throat, "dragon tongue-shaped orchid" also <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=2rRyHMBaU9gC&amp;pg=PA54&amp;lpg=PA54&amp;dq=tequila+dragon+tongue+orchid&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=zDfXecmyIU&amp;sig=KJ8ZTIBgEH_Bn5gnLTotMX6FU7Q&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=M6fmUtXGMNC1sATO14DgDw&amp;ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&amp;q=tequila%20dragon%20tongue%20orchid&amp;f=false" target="_blank">describes</a> the pointed leaves of the <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewbender/2013/05/03/five-ways-tequila-is-good-for-you/" target="_blank">blue agave plant</a> that is used as a main ingredient in tequila.</p>
<p>Fun fact: The Chinese government banned 100% blue agave tequila due to fears of its high methanol content, but President Xi <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23906661">lifted the ban last summer</a> after a visit to Mexico.</p>
<h3>"[I'm] sorry" (對不起) becomes "do not rise."</h3>
<p>"I'm sorry" could literally be translated as "do not rise," or "face not up." 對 by itself means "to face," while the last two characters 不起 by themselves mean "not up" or "not rise."</p>
<p>It's used metaphorically, says Liao, in that if you were to do someone wrong, you may not be able to face the person out of shame.</p>
<p>There are many other possible translations of this phrase, depending on the context, but "I'm sorry" is one of the most common ways to use it.</p>
<h3>"Stupid" or "lazy" (二百五) becomes "250."</h3>
<p>Calling someone "250" means they are stupid, as in someone who does something rashly without clearly thinking through it, says Liao, and the phrase can be used as a noun or an adjective.</p>
<p><a href="http://blogs.transparent.com/chinese/culturalquirks/">Some people think</a> the origin of the phrase relates to an ancient Chinese unit of currency called a <em>diao</em> (弔). The Chinese scholars, being modest and humble, would call themselves 二百五, which is a quarter of a <em>diao.</em></p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/52e7ceaf69bedd2b68afa2cb-800-600/green-hat-san-francisco.jpg" border="0" alt="Green Hat, San Francisco" width="480"></p>
<h3>"Being cheated on" or "being a cuckhold" (戴绿帽子) becomes "wear a green hat."</h3>
<p><a href="http://blogs.transparent.com/chinese/culturalquirks/">The story goes</a> that there was a man who worked long hours and left his wife at home. Bored, she started cheating on him. One morning the clueless husband put on his hat and left for work as usual, to find his neighbors pointing and laughing at him. It turned out the man had grabbed his wife's lover's hat — a green one — instead of his own.</p>
<p>The older generations in China typically still don't wear green hats because of this phrase. "Otherwise you open yourself to ridicule," says Liao.</p>
<h3>"Sexual harassment" (吃豆腐) becomes "eat tofu."</h3>
<p>"Culturally, food is a very important part of Chinese people's lives, so 'eat' the verb plays an important role in vocabulary," says Wenteng Shao, Language Lecturer of East Asian Studies at NYU, and the verb has different functions. For example,&nbsp;<strong>"suffer"&nbsp;(吃苦) becomes&nbsp;</strong><strong>"eating bitterness.</strong><strong>"</strong> This makes sense in the phrase meaning of the words, but what about "eating tofu"?</p>
<p>Tofu is known for having properties that promote beauty, and is often associated with women. "Beautiful women really are like tofu in many respects: white skin, shining smooth yet also elastic, delicate souls, gentle as jade..." <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/group/sjeaa/journal51/china3.pdf">according to a June 2003 column in the <em>Xinghua News</em></a>. So the tofu part of the phrase could refer to a woman attracting a man and, subsequently, sexual advances.</p>
<h3>"Computer" (电脑) becomes "electric brain."</h3>
<p>The first character, 电, is one of a handful of pictographic Chinese characters, which are drawn to look like their meaning. Its <a href="http://characters.cultural-china.com/84.html" target="_blank">strokes can be interpreted as</a>&nbsp;rain clouds about to shower and a bolt of lightning — but it's come to mean "electric" or "electricity" in modern usage.</p>
<p>The Chinese use 电 in an abundance of tech contexts, like for computer. <strong>Telephone (电话)&nbsp;becomes "electric words" and movie (电影) becomes "electric shadow."</strong></p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/52eab6746da81195573292fd-1200-924/screenshot-from-wind-flower-snow-moon.png" border="0" alt="Screenshot from Wind Flower Snow Moon" width="480"></p>
<h3>Trite language is described as "wind flower snow moon" (風花雪月).</h3>
<p>In <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=7OolnFbgs_IC&amp;pg=PA62&amp;lpg=PA62&amp;dq=wind+flower+snow+moon+theme&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=Ul6chTSs1L&amp;sig=7tO-5FdPQjWXtNcnkUgMbCo4eyw&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=0KHqUuKQPPPJsQTW34IQ&amp;ved=0CDsQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&amp;q=wind%20flower%20snow%20moon%20theme&amp;f=false" target="_blank">classical Chinese literature</a>, these earthy, thematic words were traditionally strung together to imply a romantic atmosphere or poetic images, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=Ia03AAAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA108&amp;lpg=PA108&amp;dq=wind+flower+snow+moon+romantic&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=4QTrGzX-sl&amp;sig=sQwSaraGqsbcPzIcf9T3YlxKYzE&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=K6DqUqT_BsrNsQTPjoC4Cg&amp;ved=0CE8Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&amp;q=wind%20flower%20snow%20moon%20romantic&amp;f=false" target="_blank">describing an over-the-top gesture or mood</a>.</p>
<p>Today the phrase is more often used in the context of flowery, trite subjects; some would say the phrase most accurately describes&nbsp;"<a href="http://www.chinesedic.com/en/trite">effete language without substance</a>." It could also be used to describe someone with his head in the clouds.</p>
<h3>A threat or warning (给你点颜色看看) becomes "I will show you some color."</h3>
<p>The act of "showing color" to someone, when warning or threatening them, is metaphorical in one of two ways, Lao explains.</p>
<p>The first could be as in "I'm going to show you my <em>true</em> color," showing the person what you're made of; the "color" metaphor could also be taken one step further to imply black and blue, like a bruise, or red, like blood, if threatening physical violence.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.chinatoday.com.cn/english/chinese/2013-06/18/content_549748.htm">Other sources suggest</a> that the color relates directly to the person who is angry, who could be "seeing red" or feeling hot-tempered.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/phrase-origins-that-are-wrong-2015-1" >The real stories behind 7 everyday expressions</a></strong></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/translations-of-common-chinese-phrases-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-cuban-on-fame-and-being-rich-2014-12">Mark Cuban: Here's The Hardest Part Of Being A Billionaire</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/is-there-a-bilingual-advantage-2015-1The 'bilingual advantage' might not be a real thinghttp://www.businessinsider.com/is-there-a-bilingual-advantage-2015-1
Mon, 16 Feb 2015 11:45:00 -0500Pierre Bienaimé
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54cab391ecad04c61b09cc88-1200-924/basel switzerland police sign italian english bilingual.jpg" border="0" alt="Basel Switzerland Police sign Italian English bilingual.JPG"></p><p>The ability to speak two languages is often credited with bringing serious <a href="http://time.com/3581457/bilingual-brain-smart/">benefits</a> to a speaker's brain. Real world advantages aside, the bilingual brain is thought to make for a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html">stronger executive control system</a> (what "The Bilingual Advantage" author, psychologist Ellen Bialystok, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html?_r=0">calls</a> the organ's "general manager").</p>
<p>Since bilingual speakers are essentially multitasking as they switch between languages (or among them, in the case of polyglots), the reasoning goes that they're better at multitasking in general.</p>
<p>But as <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/bilingual-advantage-aging-brain">Maria Konnikova reported in The New Yorker</a>, this perceived advantage might not exist, and researchers often find evidence that bilingualism doesn't bring with it an extra dose of focus or poise.</p>
<p>Dutch psychologist Angela de Bruin, who is the story's principal source, matriculated in a graduate linguistics and neuroscience program "expecting to study the extent to which her bilingual brain was adapted to succeed," Konnikova writes.</p>
<p>But when she put participants through four "inhibitory control" tasks — the type in which you're made to ignore one stimulus in order to count or otherwise keep track of others — de Bruin found that three of these yielded no evidence of advantages for bilinguals over their single-language peers. This experiment went against the scientific consensus that speaking two languages is better than speaking one, calling into question the seeming ubiquity of positive results about bilingualism.</p>
<p>"We thought, Maybe the existing literature is not a full, reliable picture of this field," de Bruin told Konnikova. She decided to try to get to the bottom of things in a clever way: She compared the number of "counter-advantage" ideas and studies floating around scientific conferences to the number that went on to survive in the more rigorous world of peer-reviewed publication.</p>
<p>Konnikova <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/bilingual-advantage-aging-brain">explains</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The rationale was straightforward: conferences are places where people present in-progress research. They report on studies that they are running, initial results, initial thoughts. If there were a systematic bias in the field against reporting negative results—that is, results that show no effects of bilingualism—then there should be many more findings of that sort presented at conferences than actually become published.</p>
<p>And that's exactly <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/26/1/99">what de Bruin found</a>. Across 69 conferences held between 1999 and 2012, the presented results were split about evenly between the "pro" and "meh" camps of the bilingual advantage debate. But <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/26/1/99.full">68% of the former studies were published in a scientific journal, compared to 29% of those</a> promoting what might just be an unpopular finding: that there are "no differences between monolinguals and bilinguals or... a bilingual disadvantage," de Bruin wrote.</p>
<p>It could just be that those studies are less rigorous, and that sub-par experiments and analyses — not bias — explain why they never made it into a journal. But even if they are, their backers could be credited for actively seeking to avoid letting the scientific community fall into an echo chamber, where "sacred" ideas grow, even when they may be faulty.</p>
<p>De Bruin does allow that there's a strong correlation between being able to speak two languages and keeping dementia at bay — for a few years, at least.</p>
<p>In two studies Bialystok was involved in, lifelong bilingualism was found to delay the onset of <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393206004076">dementia</a> and <a href="http://www.neurology.org/content/75/19/1726.abstract">Alzheimer's disease</a> by 4 and 4.3 years, respectively, compared to their monolingual peers.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/549369ffecad04463ebd315c-900-809/d-70.jpg" border="0" alt="brain" style="color: #000000;"><span>A more recent and extensive&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2013/11/06/01.wnl.0000436620.33155.a4">study</a><span>&nbsp;in Hyderabad, India — where bilingualism is prevalent — confirms this correlation.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>More than half of the 648 subjects spoke two or more languages, and "developed dementia 4.5 years later than the monolingual ones." The benefit was found "across Alzheimer disease dementia as well as frontotemporal dementia and vascular dementia."&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">(</span><a href="http://www.alz.org/dementia/fronto-temporal-dementia-ftd-symptoms.asp">Frontotemporal dementia</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> leads to cell degeneration in the brain, though its cause is unknown. </span><a href="http://www.alz.org/dementia/vascular-dementia-symptoms.asp">Vascular dementia</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, on the other hand, is the result of poor or interrupted blow flow to the brain, such as that caused by strokes.)&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>Incidentally, patients enjoyed this resilience even if they were functionally illiterate, or unable to read or write the multiple languages they spoke.</p>
<p>But more significant to de Bruin's own research is that the study in Hyderabad linked the dementia-fighting benefits to the executive function boost that de Bruin is doubting. As the study notes:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The constant need in a bilingual person to selectively activate one language and suppress the other is thought to lead to a better development of executive functions and attentional tasks with cognitive advantages being best documented in attentional control, inhibition, and conflict resolution.</p>
<p>What seems certain, then, is that bilingualism does help ward off dementia, whether by empowering the brain's executive system or for still unknown reasons.</p>
<p>And while arguments and (quieter) counter-arguments fly regarding the possible advantages of bilingualism, it might be the pragmatic stance that wins out: speaking more than one language means being able to order lunch far from home. While researchers continue to investigate, there are obvious advantages to being a polyglot, even without the much-celebrated, intellectual boost it might provide.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-lost-languages-leave-a-mark-on-the-brain-2014-11#ixzz3QKlLvE7i" >Scientists have found that lost languages leave a lasting mark on the brain</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/is-there-a-bilingual-advantage-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/map-how-indo-european-languages-evolved-2014-12">This Animated Map Shows How European Languages Evolved </a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/39-incorrectly-used-words-that-can-make-you-look-stupid-2015-239 incorrectly used words that can make you look stupidhttp://www.businessinsider.com/39-incorrectly-used-words-that-can-make-you-look-stupid-2015-2
Fri, 13 Feb 2015 16:44:02 -0500Jeff Haden
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54de348269bedde51caeaf6e-1200-924/woman-writing-pen-pencil-handwriting-3.jpg" border="0" alt="Woman Writing Pen Pencil Handwriting"></p><p>Where the mechanics of writing are concerned, I'm far from perfect.</p>
<p>One example: I always struggle with <em>who</em> and <em>whom</em>. (Sometimes I'll even rewrite a sentence just so I won't have to worry about which is correct.)</p>
<p>And that's a real problem. The same way one misspelled word can get your résumé tossed onto the reject pile, one misused word can negatively impact your entire message.</p>
<p>Fair or unfair, it happens all the time — so let's make sure it doesn't happen to you.</p>
<p>My post&nbsp;<a href="http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/32-incorrectly-used-words-that-can-make-us-look-stupid.html">30 Incorrectly Used Words That Can Make You Look Bad</a>&nbsp;resulted in readers providing a number of other examples of misused words, and here are some of them. Once again I've picked words that are typically used in business settings, with special emphasis on words that spell checker won't correct.</p>
<p>Here we go:</p>
<p><strong><em>Advise</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>advice</em></strong></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Aside from the two words being pronounced differently (the&nbsp;</span><em>s</em><span>&nbsp;in&nbsp;</span><em>advise</em><span>&nbsp;sounds like a</span><em>z</em><span>),&nbsp;</span><em>advise</em><span>&nbsp;is a verb while&nbsp;</span><em>advice</em><span>&nbsp;is a noun. Advice is what you give (whether or not the recipient is interested in that gift is a different issue altogether) when you advise someone.</span></span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">So,&nbsp;"Thank you for the advise" is incorrect, while&nbsp;"I advise you not to bore me with your advice in the future" is correct if pretentious.</span></p>
<p>If you run into trouble, just say each word out loud and you'll instantly know which makes sense; there's no way you'd ever say, "I advice you to..."</p>
<p><strong><em>Ultimate</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>penultimate</em></strong></p>
<p>Recently I received a pitch from a PR professional that read, "(Acme Industries) provides the penultimate value-added services for discerning professionals."</p>
<p>As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIP6EwqMEoE" target="_blank">Inigo would say</a>, "I do not think it means what you think it means."</p>
<p><em>Ultimate</em>&nbsp;means the best,&nbsp;or final,&nbsp;or last.&nbsp;<em>Penultimate</em>&nbsp;means the last but one, or second to last. (Or, as a Monty&nbsp;Python-inspired Michelangelo would say,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Aj7W3g1qo" target="_blank">"the Penultimate Supper!"</a>)</p>
<p>But&nbsp;<em>penultimate</em>&nbsp;doesn't mean second-best. Plus, I don't think my PR friend meant to say her client offered second-class services. (I think she just thought the word sounded cool.)</p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that using&nbsp;<em>ultimate</em>&nbsp;is fraught with hyperbolic peril. Are you — or is what you provide — really the absolute best imaginable? That's a tough standard to meet.</p>
<p><strong><em>Well&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>good</em></strong></p>
<p>Anyone who has children uses&nbsp;<em>good</em>&nbsp;more often than he or she should. Since kids pretty quickly learn what&nbsp;<em>good</em>&nbsp;means, "You did good, honey" is much more convenient and meaningful than "You did well, honey."</p>
<p>But that doesn't mean&nbsp;<em>good</em>&nbsp;is the correct word choice.</p>
<p><em>Good</em>&nbsp;is an adjective that describes something; if you did a good job, then you do good work.&nbsp;<em>Well</em>&nbsp;is an adverb that describes how something was done; you can do your job well.</p>
<p>Where it gets tricky is when you describe, say, your health or emotional state. "I don't feel well" is grammatically correct, even though many people (including me) often say, "I don't feel too good." On the other hand, "I don't feel good about how he treated me" is correct; no one says, "I don't feel well about how I'm treated."</p>
<p>Confused? If you're praising an employee and referring to the outcome say, "You did a good job." If you're referring to how the employee performed say, "You did incredibly well."</p>
<p>And while you're at it, stop saying&nbsp;<em>good</em>&nbsp;to your kids and use&nbsp;<em>great</em>&nbsp;instead, because no one — especially a kid — ever receives too much praise.</p>
<p><strong><em>If</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>whether</em></strong></p>
<p><em>If</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>whether</em>&nbsp;are often interchangeable. If a yes/no condition is involved, then feel free to use either: "I wonder whether Jim will finish the project on time" or&nbsp;"I wonder if Jim will finish the project on time." (<em>Whether</em>&nbsp;sounds a little more formal in this case, so consider your audience and how you wish to be perceived.)</p>
<p>What's trickier is when a condition is not involved. "Let me know whether Marcia needs a projector for the meeting" isn't conditional, because you want to be informed either way. "Let me know if Marcia needs a projector for the meeting" is conditional, because you only want to be told if she needs one.</p>
<p>And always use&nbsp;<em>if</em>&nbsp;when you introduce a condition. "If you hit your monthly target, I'll increase your bonus" is correct; the condition is hitting the target and the bonus is the result. "Whether you are able to hit your monthly target is totally up to you" does not introduce a condition (unless you want the employee to infer that your thinly veiled threat is a condition of ongoing employment).</p>
<p><strong><em>Stationary</em>&nbsp;and s<em>tationery</em></strong></p>
<p>You write on stationery. You get business stationery, such as letterhead and envelopes, printed.</p>
<p>But that box of envelopes is not stationary unless it's not moving — and even then it's still stationery.</p>
<p><strong><em>Award</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>reward</em></strong></p>
<p>An award is a prize. Musicians win Grammy Awards. Car companies win J.D. Power awards. Employees win Employee of the Month awards. Think of an award as the result of a contest or competition.</p>
<p>A reward is something given in return for effort, achievement, hard work, merit, etc. A sales commission is a reward. A bonus is a reward. A free trip for landing the most new customers is a reward.</p>
<p>Be happy when your employees win industry or civic awards, and reward them for the hard work and sacrifices they make to help your business grow.</p>
<p><strong><em>Sympathy</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>empathy</em></strong></p>
<p>Sympathy is acknowledging another person's feelings. "I am sorry for your loss" means you understand the other person is grieving and want to recognize that fact.</p>
<p>Empathy is having the ability to put yourself in the other person's shoes and relate to how the person feels, at least in part because you've experienced those feelings yourself.</p>
<p>The difference is huge. Sympathy is passive; empathy is active. (Here's a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw" target="_blank">short video by Brené Brown</a>&nbsp;that does a great job of describing the difference — and how empathy fuels connection while sympathy drives disconnection.)</p>
<p>Know the difference between sympathy and empathy, live the difference, and you'll make a bigger difference in other people's lives.</p>
<p><strong><em>Criterion</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>criteria</em></strong></p>
<p>A criterion is a principle or standard. If you have more than one criterion, those are referred to as criteria.</p>
<p>But if you want to be safe and you only have one issue to consider, just say <em>standard</em> or <em>rule</em> or <em>benchmark</em>. Then use&nbsp;<em>criteria</em>&nbsp;for all the times there are multiple specifications or multiple criterion (OK, standards) involved.</p>
<p><strong><em>Mute</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>moot</em></strong></p>
<p>Think of&nbsp;<em>mute</em>&nbsp;like the button on your remote; it means unspoken or unable to speak. In the U.S.,&nbsp;<em>moot</em>&nbsp;refers to something that is of no practical importance; a moot point is one that could be hypothetical or even (gasp!) academic. In British English,&nbsp;<em>moot&nbsp;</em>can also mean debatable or open to debate.</p>
<p>So if you were planning an IPO, but your sales have plummeted, the idea of going public could be moot. And if you decide not to talk about it anymore, you will have gone mute on the subject.</p>
<p><strong><em>Peak</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>peek</em></strong></p>
<p>A peak is the highest point; climbers try to reach the peak of Mount Everest.&nbsp;<em>Peek&nbsp;</em>means quick glance, as in giving major customers a sneak peek at a new product before it's officially unveiled, which hopefully helps sales peak at an unimaginable height.</p>
<p>Occasionally a marketer will try to "peak your interest" or "peek your interest," but in that case the right word is&nbsp;<em>pique,</em>&nbsp;which means "to excite." (<em>Pique</em>&nbsp;can also mean "to upset,"&nbsp;but hopefully that's not what marketers intend.)</p>
<p><strong><em>Aggressive</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>enthusiastic</em></strong></p>
<p><em>Aggressive</em>&nbsp;is a very popular business adjective: aggressive sales force, aggressive revenue projections, aggressive product rollout. But unfortunately,&nbsp;<em>aggressive&nbsp;</em>means ready to attack,&nbsp;or pursuing aims forcefully, possibly unduly so.</p>
<p>So do you really want an "aggressive" sales force?</p>
<p>Of course, most people have seen&nbsp;<em>aggressive</em>&nbsp;used that way for so long they don't think of it negatively; to them it just means hard-charging, results-oriented, driven, etc., none of which are bad things.</p>
<p>But some people may not see it that way. So consider using words like&nbsp;<em>enthusiastic</em>,&nbsp;<em>eager, committed, dedicated,</em>&nbsp;or even (although it pains me to say it)&nbsp;<em>passionate.</em></p>
<p><strong><em>Then&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>than</em></strong></p>
<p><em>Then</em>&nbsp;refers in some way to time. "Let's close this deal, and then we'll celebrate!" Since the celebration comes after the sale,&nbsp;<em>then</em>&nbsp;is correct.</p>
<p><em>Then</em>&nbsp;is also often used with&nbsp;<em>if.&nbsp;</em>Think in terms of if-then statements: "If we don't get to the office on time, then we won't be able to close the deal today."</p>
<p><em>Than</em>&nbsp;involves a comparison. "Landing Customer A will result in higher revenue&nbsp;than landing Customer B," or&nbsp;"Our sales team is more committed to building customer relationships than the competition is."</p>
<p><strong><em>Evoke</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>invoke</em></strong></p>
<p>To evoke is to call to mind; an unusual smell might evoke a long-lost memory. To invoke is to call upon some thing: help, aid, or maybe a higher power.</p>
<p>So hopefully all your branding and messaging efforts evoke specific emotions in potential customers. But if they don't, you might consider invoking the gods of commerce to aid you in your quest for profitability.</p>
<p>Or something like that.</p>
<p><strong><em>Continuously</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>continually</em></strong></p>
<p>Both words come from the root&nbsp;<em>continue,</em>&nbsp;but they mean very different things.<em>Continuously</em>&nbsp;means never ending. Hopefully your efforts to develop your employees are continuous, because you never want to stop improving their skills and their future.</p>
<p><em>Continual</em>&nbsp;means whatever you're referring to stops and starts. You might have frequent disagreements with your co-founder, but unless those discussions never end (which is unlikely, even though it might feel otherwise), then those disagreements are continual.</p>
<p>That's why you should focus on continuous improvement but only plan to have continual meetings with your accountant: The former should never, ever stop, and the other (mercifully) should.</p>
<p><strong><em>Systemic</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>systematic</em></strong></p>
<p>If you're in doubt,&nbsp;<em>systematic</em>&nbsp;is almost always the right word to use.&nbsp;<em>Systematic&nbsp;</em>means arranged or carried out according to a plan, method, or system.&nbsp;That's why you can take a systematic approach to continuous improvement, or do a systematic evaluation of customer revenue&nbsp;or a systematic assessment of market conditions.</p>
<p><em>Systemic</em>&nbsp;means belonging to or affecting the system as a whole.&nbsp;Poor morale could be systemic to your organization. Or bias against employee diversity could be systemic.</p>
<p>So if your organization is facing a pervasive problem, take a systematic approach to dealing with it — that's probably the only way you'll overcome it.</p>
<p><strong><em>Impact</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>affect</em>&nbsp;(and&nbsp;<em>effect</em>)</strong></p>
<p>Many people (including&nbsp;until recently&nbsp;me) use&nbsp;<em>impact</em>&nbsp;when they should use&nbsp;<em>affect</em>.&nbsp;<em>Impact</em>&nbsp;doesn't mean to influence;&nbsp;<em>impact&nbsp;</em>means to strike, collide, or pack firmly.</p>
<p><em>Affect&nbsp;</em>means to influence: "Impatient investors affected our rollout date."</p>
<p>And to make it more confusing,&nbsp;<em>effect</em>&nbsp;means to accomplish something: "The board effected a sweeping policy change."</p>
<p>How you correctly use&nbsp;<em>effect</em>&nbsp;or&nbsp;<em>affect&nbsp;</em>can be tricky. For example, a board can affect changes by influencing them and can effect changes by directly implementing them. Bottom line, use&nbsp;<em>effect</em>&nbsp;if you're making it happen, and&nbsp;<em>affect</em>&nbsp;if you're having an impact on something that someone else is trying to make happen.</p>
<p>As for nouns,&nbsp;<em>effect</em>&nbsp;is almost always correct: "Employee morale has had a negative effect&nbsp;on productivity." <em>Affect</em>&nbsp;refers to an emotional state, so unless you're a psychologist, you probably have little reason to use it.</p>
<p>So stop saying you'll "impact sales" or "impact the bottom line." Use&nbsp;<em>affect.</em></p>
<p>(And feel free to remind me when I screw that up, because I feel sure I'll backslide.)</p>
<p><strong><em>Between&nbsp;</em>and&nbsp;<em>among</em></strong></p>
<p>Use&nbsp;<em>between</em>&nbsp;when you name separate and individual items. "The team will decide between Mary, Marcia, and Steve when we fill the open customer service position." Mary, Marcia, and Steve are separate and distinct, so&nbsp;<em>between</em>&nbsp;is correct.</p>
<p>Use&nbsp;<em>among</em>&nbsp;when there are three or more items but they are not named separately. "The team will decide among a number of candidates when we fill the open customer service position." Who are the candidates? You haven't named them separately, so&nbsp;<em>among</em>&nbsp;is correct.</p>
<p>And we're assuming there are more than two candidates; otherwise you'd say&nbsp;<em>between.</em>&nbsp;If there are two candidates you could say, "I just can't decide between them."</p>
<p><strong><em>Everyday</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>every day</em></strong></p>
<p><em>Every day</em>&nbsp;means, yep, every day — each and every day. If you ate a bagel for breakfast each day this week, you had a bagel every day.</p>
<p><em>Everyday</em>&nbsp;means commonplace or normal. Decide to wear your "everyday shoes" and that means you've chosen to wear the shoes you normally wear. That doesn't mean you have to wear them every single day; it just means wearing them is a usual occurrence.</p>
<p>Another example is&nbsp;<em>along</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>a long:</em>&nbsp;<em>Along</em>&nbsp;means moving in a constant direction&nbsp;or a line, or in the company of others, while&nbsp;<em>a long</em>&nbsp;means of great distance or duration. You wouldn't stand in "along line," but you might stand in a long line for a long time, along with a number of other people.</p>
<p>A couple more examples:&nbsp;<em>a while</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>awhile</em>, and&nbsp;<em>any way</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>anyway</em>.</p>
<p>If you're in doubt, read what you write out loud. It's unlikely you'll think&nbsp;"Is there anyway you can help me?" sounds right.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/common-grammar-mistakes-2014-6" >10 Grammar Mistakes Even Smart People Make</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/39-incorrectly-used-words-that-can-make-you-look-stupid-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/dog-whisperer-cesar-millan-success-2014-12">'Dog Whisperer' Cesar Millan: How I Lost Everything And Got It All Back In Three Years</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/most-languages-have-more-positive-words-than-negative-words-2015-2Most languages have more positive words than negative wordshttp://www.businessinsider.com/most-languages-have-more-positive-words-than-negative-words-2015-2
Fri, 13 Feb 2015 11:57:00 -0500Tanya Lewis
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/530e70076bb3f7300b049ccd-1200-800/3274322448_4852bcf182_o.jpg" border="0" alt="girls dancing shadow silhouette happy"></p><p>From the idealistic prose of Cervantes' "Don Quixote" to the crisis-ridden pages of daily newspapers, most human language tends to take a happy view on life, a new study suggests.</p>
<p>A team of scientists used Big Data techniques to examine a massive amount of data on 10 languages, from Korean Twitter feeds to Russian literature, and found that the most commonly used words in each language were all skewed toward the positive.</p>
<p>This positive bias in language "is not what people think when they read the paper or listen to music on the radio or read YouTube comments," said Christopher Danforth, an applied mathematician at the University of Vermont and co-author of the study.</p>
<p>The research was published yesterday (Feb. 9) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.</p>
<p>After analyzing the language data, Danforth and his team went on to develop an interactive "happiness meter" to measure people's emotions on the social media site Twitter, and compare them in different parts of the country.</p>
<p>The new research draws on some old ideas about language. "The concept has been around for a while that maybe we are hard-wired to communicate in a way that encourages us to get along," Danforth told Live Science.</p>
<h4>The happiness bias</h4>
<p>In 1969, psychologists at the University of Illinois came up with the idea, dubbed the Pollyanna hypothesis, that humans have a universal tendency to use positive words more often than negative ones. But those findings were based on small studies.</p>
<p>In the new study, Danforth and his team took a more data-driven approach. The researchers analyzed billions of words from English, Spanish, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified), Russian, Indonesian and Arabic.</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54de1482ecad0429444ca01c-800-350/love words languages word cloud.jpg" border="0" alt="love words languages word cloud">The words came from two dozen types of sources, such as books, news outlets, social media, websites, television and movie subtitles, and music lyrics.</p>
<p>The researchers identified about 10,000 of the most commonly used words for each language, and asked native speakers to rate the happiness of these words on a scale from 1 to 9, where 9 was a smiling face, 1 was a frowning face, and 5 was neutral. For example, English speakers rated the word "laughter" at 8.50 and the word "terrorist" at 1.30.</p>
<p>On average, the ratings showed that a Google search of Spanish websites had the highest score for word happiness, followed by Portuguese Google searches, Portuguese Tweets, and English Google Books. Chinese Google Books had the least happy words, followed by Korean movie subtitles and English music lyrics.</p>
<p>But across all languages and types of text, the median word happiness score was higher than 5 on the scale of 1 to 9. In other words, humans use more happy words than sad ones, the researchers said.</p>
<h4>Happiness meter</h4>
<p>In addition to the ranking experiment, the researchers created an online word "happiness meter," called a hedonometer, which can track posts on Twitter in real-time.</p>
<p>The meter showed dips in happiness during tragedies such as the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in Paris, and spikes in positivity on holidays like Christmas and New Year's Day.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>Finally it all makes sense! :-) <a href="https://twitter.com/hedonometer">@hedonometer</a> <a href="http://t.co/Rkk6ZZOFse">pic.twitter.com/Rkk6ZZOFse</a></p>
— Cesar A. Hidalgo (@cesifoti) <a href="https://twitter.com/cesifoti/status/495288988266426368">August 1, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p>Another cool feature of the tool is the ability to chart the ebb and flow of happiness over the course of a book. For example, the hedonometer score of words in Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" dips down at its dark ending, whereas Alexandre Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo" ends with a high happiness score.</p>
<p>The hedonometer can also be used to track happiness in different parts of the country. For example, Vermont and Boulder, Colorado, currently rank as the happiest U.S. state and city, respectively, whereas Louisiana and Racine, Wisconsin, rank as the saddest, the researchers said.</p>
<p>Such a tool could be useful for journalists or policy experts, who might use it to gauge public opinion on different events, Danforth said.</p>
<p>While the hedonometer can't always substitute for traditional survey data, he said, "it's just one of the dials on the dashboard [President] Obama would want to see every day."</p>
<p><em>Follow Tanya Lewis on </em><a href="https://twitter.com/tanyalewis314"><em>Twitter</em></a><em>. Follow us </em><a href="https://twitter.com/LiveScience"><em>@livescience</em></a><em>, </em><em><a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/livescience">Facebook</a> </em><em>&amp;</em> <a href="https://plus.google.com/101164570444913213957/posts"><em>Google+</em></a><em>. Original article on </em><a href="http://www.livescience.com/49765-languages-have-positive-bias.html"><em>Live Science</em></a><em>.</em></p>
<h3>Editor's Recommendations</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.livescience.com/17511-7-happy.html">7 Things That Will Make You Happy</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.livescience.com/44216-weird-ways-measure-happiness.html">5 Weird Ways to Measure Happiness</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.livescience.com/17894-10-scientific-parenting-tips.html">10 Scientific Tips For Raising Happy Kids</a></li>
</ul>
<p><span>Copyright 2015&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.livescience.com/" rel="nofollow">LiveScience</a><span>, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/napolons-romantic-letters-to-josphine-2015-2#ixzz3Rdi43MHy" >French emperor Napoléon Bonaparte sent his wife the most romantic love letters of all time</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/most-languages-have-more-positive-words-than-negative-words-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/keys-happiness-2014-5">How To Be Happy — A Practical Guide To Happiness For The Regular Guy</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/words-that-hurt-your-credibility-2015-113 words that can hurt your credibility without you even realizing ithttp://www.businessinsider.com/words-that-hurt-your-credibility-2015-1
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 13:05:00 -0500Sarah Schmalbruch
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54c25e75eab8ea91029e2904-600-/coworkers-talking-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Coworkers Talking" width="600"></p><p></p>
<p>Most people don't realize how they sound to others.</p>
<p>The words you choose could hurt your credibility without you even knowing it.</p>
<p>An obvious one is "like," but there are less obvious words and phrases that might be tripping you up.</p>
<p>We spoke with Carmen Fought, a professor of linguistics at Pitzer College, and Deborah Tannen, author of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Women-Work-Deborah-Tannen/dp/0380717832">Talking From 9 To 5: Women and Men at Work</a>" and a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, to find out which words undermine your credibility, why we use them, and how we can stop.</p>
<h3>The words</h3>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hedges: "Sort of," "kind of," "pretty much," and "maybe"</strong></p>
<p>Tannen says these are the words you use when you don't want to say something outright.</p>
<p>According to Fought, using hedges may make you seem less confident, which can be especially detrimental at work. "We don't want someone working for our company who is so insecure and who won't be able to make decisions because they're paralyzed with self-doubt," she says.</p>
<p><strong>Intensifiers: "Really," "definitely," "absolutely," and "totally"</strong></p>
<p>According to Fought, overusing these can have the opposite effect of intensifying. "It weakens your credibility in some ways because if you have to tell us how really, really, really great this trip was, maybe it wasn't that great," she says.</p>
<p>Tannen says intensifiers can also make a speaker seem overly dramatic. "You run into the risk of seeming to be so over-the-top that you lose credibility for another reason," she says. "You seem to be exaggerating; you seem hysterical."</p>
<p><strong>Fillers: "Like," "um," "er," and "ah"</strong></p>
<p>Fought refers to these words — or sounds — as "discourse markers." "It's a little word that we use to buy time or space, and it's really common," she says.</p>
<p>Tannen says fillers are automatic in our speech and are present in every language. "We all have automatic ticks when we speak," she says. "There's an impulse to put something in that space when you stop [talking]."</p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Apologizing: "Sorry"</strong></p>
<p>If you're starting a majority of your sentences with "sorry," you may want to put an end to that habit. According to Fought, constantly saying "sorry" can cause employers to question your abilities. "You don't want someone who is so overly apologetic for everything that you feel like they're not going to take ownership of their ideas," she says.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54c14054ecad0462119135d7-909-681/friends-talking-in-front-of-fountain.jpg" border="0" alt="Friends Talking in Front of Fountain"></p>
<h3>Why we use them</h3>
<p>While we might think we're having great, deep conversations, the truth is much of what we say is meaningless. "A large percentage of the words we use don't mean anything," <span>Fought explains</span>. "We spend a lot of time talking in ways that don't really convey content."</p>
<p>According to Tannen, our manner of speaking conveys who we are to others. "In almost all settings, we're not just communicating information, we're communicating impressions of ourselves," <span>she says. </span>"Anything that makes the impression more authoritative is going to work to your advantage."</p>
<p>What's more, the words we use are often based on what the people around us say. "We develop styles that sound to us appropriate," Tannen says. "You want to sound like your friends. You want to sound like people you identify with."</p>
<p>And, perhaps ironically, in an attempt to make our statements sound more authoritative, we might add on these extra words for emphasis. "We want to help our statements," Fought says. "It's like our statements are little messages to the world, and these words like 'literally' or 'really' are little bows that we put on them to dress them up to go out there so that they'll be more successful." </p>
<h3>How to stop</h3>
<p>Both Fought and Tannen advise listening to yourself and developing an awareness of what you're saying.</p>
<p class="p1">"Take some time to listen to your own speech, have friends give you feedback, record yourself doing an interview, and listen back to it and see what you're doing," Fought suggests. "In isolation, none of these things are terrible, but if they're happening too much, it can weaken your credibility." </p>
<h3><strong>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/answers-illegal-questions-job-interviews-2015-1">How To Respond To 8 Illegal Interview Questions</a></strong></h3>
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<p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/buzzwords-you-should-cut-from-your-linkedin-profile-2015-1" >10 Overused Buzzwords You Should Cut From Your LinkedIn Profile Immediately</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/words-that-hurt-your-credibility-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/is-there-a-bilingual-advantage-2015-1The 'bilingual advantage' might not be a real thinghttp://www.businessinsider.com/is-there-a-bilingual-advantage-2015-1
Fri, 30 Jan 2015 15:49:00 -0500Pierre Bienaimé
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54cab391ecad04c61b09cc88-1200-924/basel switzerland police sign italian english bilingual.jpg" border="0" alt="Basel Switzerland Police sign Italian English bilingual.JPG"></p><p>The ability to speak two languages is often credited with bringing serious <a href="http://time.com/3581457/bilingual-brain-smart/">benefits</a> to a speaker's brain. Real world advantages aside, the bilingual brain is thought to make for a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-benefits-of-bilingualism.html">stronger executive control system</a> (what "The Bilingual Advantage" author, psychologist Ellen Bialystok, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html?_r=0">calls</a> the organ's "general manager").</p>
<p>Since bilingual speakers are essentially multitasking as they switch between languages (or among them, in the case of polyglots), the reasoning goes that they're better at multitasking in general.</p>
<p>But as <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/bilingual-advantage-aging-brain">Maria Konnikova reported in The New Yorker</a>, this perceived advantage might not exist, and researchers often find evidence that bilingualism doesn't bring with it an extra dose of focus or poise.</p>
<p>Dutch psychologist Angela de Bruin, who is the story's principal source, matriculated in a graduate linguistics and neuroscience program "expecting to study the extent to which her bilingual brain was adapted to succeed," Konnikova writes.</p>
<p>But when she put participants through four "inhibitory control" tasks — the type in which you're made to ignore one stimulus in order to count or otherwise keep track of others — de Bruin found that three of these yielded no evidence of advantages for bilinguals over their single-language peers. This experiment went against the scientific consensus that speaking two languages is better than speaking one, calling into question the seeming ubiquity of positive results about bilingualism.</p>
<p>"We thought, Maybe the existing literature is not a full, reliable picture of this field," de Bruin told Konnikova. She decided to try to get to the bottom of things in a clever way: She compared the number of "counter-advantage" ideas and studies floating around scientific conferences to the number that went on to survive in the more rigorous world of peer-reviewed publication.</p>
<p>Konnikova <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/bilingual-advantage-aging-brain">explains</a>:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The rationale was straightforward: conferences are places where people present in-progress research. They report on studies that they are running, initial results, initial thoughts. If there were a systematic bias in the field against reporting negative results—that is, results that show no effects of bilingualism—then there should be many more findings of that sort presented at conferences than actually become published.</p>
<p>And that's exactly <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/26/1/99">what de Bruin found</a>. Across 69 conferences held between 1999 and 2012, the presented results were split about evenly between the "pro" and "meh" camps of the bilingual advantage debate. But <a href="http://pss.sagepub.com/content/26/1/99.full">68% of the former studies were published in a scientific journal, compared to 29% of those</a> promoting what might just be an unpopular finding: that there are "no differences between monolinguals and bilinguals or... a bilingual disadvantage," de Bruin wrote.</p>
<p>It could just be that those studies are less rigorous, and that sub-par experiments and analyses — not bias — explain why they never made it into a journal. But even if they are, their backers could be credited for actively seeking to avoid letting the scientific community fall into an echo chamber, where "sacred" ideas grow, even when they may be faulty.</p>
<p>De Bruin does allow that there's a strong correlation between being able to speak two languages and keeping dementia at bay — for a few years, at least.</p>
<p>In two studies Bialystok was involved in, lifelong bilingualism was found to delay the onset of <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393206004076">dementia</a> and <a href="http://www.neurology.org/content/75/19/1726.abstract">Alzheimer's disease</a> by 4 and 4.3 years, respectively, compared to their monolingual peers.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/549369ffecad04463ebd315c-900-809/d-70.jpg" border="0" alt="brain" style="color: #000000;"><span>A more recent and extensive&nbsp;</span><a href="http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2013/11/06/01.wnl.0000436620.33155.a4">study</a><span>&nbsp;in Hyderabad, India — where bilingualism is prevalent — confirms this correlation.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>More than half of the 648 subjects spoke two or more languages, and "developed dementia 4.5 years later than the monolingual ones." The benefit was found "across Alzheimer disease dementia as well as frontotemporal dementia and vascular dementia."&nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">(</span><a href="http://www.alz.org/dementia/fronto-temporal-dementia-ftd-symptoms.asp">Frontotemporal dementia</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> leads to cell degeneration in the brain, though its cause is unknown. </span><a href="http://www.alz.org/dementia/vascular-dementia-symptoms.asp">Vascular dementia</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">, on the other hand, is the result of poor or interrupted blow flow to the brain, such as that caused by strokes.)&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>Incidentally, patients enjoyed this resilience even if they were functionally illiterate, or unable to read or write the multiple languages they spoke.</p>
<p>But more significant to de Bruin's own research is that the study in Hyderabad linked the dementia-fighting benefits to the executive function boost that de Bruin is doubting. As the study notes:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">The constant need in a bilingual person to selectively activate one language and suppress the other is thought to lead to a better development of executive functions and attentional tasks with cognitive advantages being best documented in attentional control, inhibition, and conflict resolution.</p>
<p>What seems certain, then, is that bilingualism does help ward off dementia, whether by empowering the brain's executive system or for still unknown reasons.</p>
<p>And while arguments and (quieter) counter-arguments fly regarding the possible advantages of bilingualism, it might be the pragmatic stance that wins out: speaking more than one language means being able to order lunch far from home. While researchers continue to investigate, there are obvious advantages to being a polyglot, even without the much-celebrated, intellectual boost it might provide.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-lost-languages-leave-a-mark-on-the-brain-2014-11#ixzz3QKlLvE7i" >Scientists have found that lost languages leave a lasting mark on the brain</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/is-there-a-bilingual-advantage-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/map-how-indo-european-languages-evolved-2014-12">This Animated Map Shows How European Languages Evolved </a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/this-tree-beautifully-reveals-the-relationships-between-languages-2015-1This Tree Beautifully Reveals The Relationships Between Languageshttp://www.businessinsider.com/this-tree-beautifully-reveals-the-relationships-between-languages-2015-1
Thu, 29 Jan 2015 17:50:00 -0500Mike Nudelman
<p>For reasons both poetic and pragmatic, the tree has historically been the designer's go-to inspiration for mapping relationships. In the graphic below, Finish-Swedish illustrator <a href="http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=196">Minna Sundberg</a> artfully uses this format to trace the world's largest language families.</p>
<p>All of the languages illustrated here stem from subcategories of either Indo-European or Uralic origin, and upon closer inspection many fascinating links are revealed.</p>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54c856a86bb3f7e17216e935-1250-938/language%20family%20tree_cropped.jpg" border="0" alt="Language Family Tree_Cropped"></p>
<p>One of the most surprising relationships is how distinct Finnish is from the other Scandinavian languages that share Germanic roots — a distinction that Sundberg seized upon with a separate Nordic-language comparison chart, which you can view <a href="http://www.sssscomic.com/comic.php?page=195">here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://hivemill.com/products/stand-still-stay-silent-language-family-tree-poster">Click here</a> for additional information or to order a poster of the graphic.</p>
<h3><strong><br>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/psychology-tricks-relationship-real-love-partner-2015-1">Why You Should Have Only 3 Things In Mind When Looking For Love</a></strong></h3>
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<h3><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/psychology-tricks-relationship-real-love-partner-2015-1"></a></strong></h3><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-americans-dont-get-irony-2015-1" >Here's The Real Reason Americans Don't Get Irony </a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-tree-beautifully-reveals-the-relationships-between-languages-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/why-big-piles-of-poo-in-spain-means-good-luck-2015-1How This Rude Spanish Phrase Came To Mean 'Good Luck'http://www.businessinsider.com/why-big-piles-of-poo-in-spain-means-good-luck-2015-1
Wed, 28 Jan 2015 09:38:00 -0500Simon Thomsen
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5480a90f6bb3f75c344d6d65-1200-924/6237476462_7db96ff945_o.jpg" border="0" alt="bullfighting in the camargue"></p><p></p>
<p>When Spanish people want to wish each other good luck, they say “Mucha mierda!”</p>
<p>You don’t need to speak Castilian do understand what that means: a lot of shit.</p>
<p>You’ll hear friends in bars saying it to each other, but if you could ask them where the phrase, which turns a negative into a positive, came from, most wouldn’t know.</p>
<p>Business Insider found out from Madrid-based tour guide&nbsp;<a href="http://www.madridtandt.com/about/">Nygil Murrell&nbsp;</a>during a tour of Spain’s capital last week.</p>
<p>Turns out it’s the Spanish equivalent (roughly) of “break a leg”, a theatrical phrase that people in the acting industry would use to wish each other luck.</p>
<p>Murrell explained that theatre was a popular entertainment for the poor, but of course the way to make money was have rich people come and see your show. Those people who inevitably arrived at the theatre by horse or horse-drawn carriages, leading to a pile of excrement accumulating while the animals waited outside.</p>
<p>The more rich people who came, the higher the pile of manure, so the way everyone involved with the show wished each other luck was hoping to see “mucha mierda” outside.</p>
<p>Eventually it crossed over into common parlance, so now friends wish each other big piles of poo, making the word&nbsp;<em>mierda</em>&nbsp;a little less vulgar than it otherwise seems.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/why-big-piles-of-poo-in-spain-means-good-luck-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/words-that-hurt-your-credibility-2015-113 Words That Can Hurt Your Credibility Without You Even Realizing Ithttp://www.businessinsider.com/words-that-hurt-your-credibility-2015-1
Fri, 23 Jan 2015 16:00:00 -0500Sarah Schmalbruch
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54c25e75eab8ea91029e2904-600-/coworkers-talking-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Coworkers Talking" width="600"></p><p></p>
<p>Most people don't realize how they sound to others.</p>
<p>The words you choose could hurt your credibility without you even knowing it.</p>
<p>An obvious one is "like," but there are less obvious words and phrases that might be tripping you up.</p>
<p>We spoke with Carmen Fought, a professor of linguistics at Pitzer College, and Deborah Tannen, author of "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Talking-Women-Work-Deborah-Tannen/dp/0380717832">Talking From 9 To 5: Women and Men at Work</a>" and a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, to find out which words undermine your credibility, why we use them, and how we can stop.</p>
<h3>The words</h3>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Hedges: "Sort of," "kind of," "pretty much," and "maybe"</strong></p>
<p>Tannen says these are the words you use when you don't want to say something outright.</p>
<p>According to Fought, using hedges may make you seem less confident, which can be especially detrimental at work. "We don't want someone working for our company who is so insecure and who won't be able to make decisions because they're paralyzed with self-doubt," she says.</p>
<p><strong>Intensifiers: "Really," "definitely," "absolutely," and "totally"</strong></p>
<p>According to Fought, overusing these can have the opposite effect of intensifying. "It weakens your credibility in some ways because if you have to tell us how really, really, really great this trip was, maybe it wasn't that great," she says.</p>
<p>Tannen says intensifiers can also make a speaker seem overly dramatic. "You run into the risk of seeming to be so over-the-top that you lose credibility for another reason," she says. "You seem to be exaggerating; you seem hysterical."</p>
<p><strong>Fillers: "Like," "um," "er," and "ah"</strong></p>
<p>Fought refers to these words — or sounds — as "discourse markers." "It's a little word that we use to buy time or space, and it's really common," she says.</p>
<p>Tannen says fillers are automatic in our speech and are present in every language. "We all have automatic ticks when we speak," she says. "There's an impulse to put something in that space when you stop [talking]."</p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">Apologizing: "Sorry"</strong></p>
<p>If you're starting a majority of your sentences with "sorry," you may want to put an end to that habit. According to Fought, constantly saying "sorry" can cause employers to question your abilities. "You don't want someone who is so overly apologetic for everything that you feel like they're not going to take ownership of their ideas," she says.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54c14054ecad0462119135d7-909-681/friends-talking-in-front-of-fountain.jpg" border="0" alt="Friends Talking in Front of Fountain"></p>
<h3>Why we use them</h3>
<p>While we might think we're having great, deep conversations, the truth is much of what we say is meaningless. "A large percentage of the words we use don't mean anything," <span>Fought explains</span>. "We spend a lot of time talking in ways that don't really convey content."</p>
<p>According to Tannen, our manner of speaking conveys who we are to others. "In almost all settings, we're not just communicating information, we're communicating impressions of ourselves," <span>she says. </span>"Anything that makes the impression more authoritative is going to work to your advantage."</p>
<p>What's more, the words we use are often based on what the people around us say. "We develop styles that sound to us appropriate," Tannen says. "You want to sound like your friends. You want to sound like people you identify with."</p>
<p>And, perhaps ironically, in an attempt to make our statements sound more authoritative, we might add on these extra words for emphasis. "We want to help our statements," Fought says. "It's like our statements are little messages to the world, and these words like 'literally' or 'really' are little bows that we put on them to dress them up to go out there so that they'll be more successful." </p>
<h3>How to stop</h3>
<p>Both Fought and Tannen advise listening to yourself and developing an awareness of what you're saying.</p>
<p class="p1">"Take some time to listen to your own speech, have friends give you feedback, record yourself doing an interview, and listen back to it and see what you're doing," Fought suggests. "In isolation, none of these things are terrible, but if they're happening too much, it can weaken your credibility." </p>
<h3><strong>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/answers-illegal-questions-job-interviews-2015-1">How To Respond To 8 Illegal Interview Questions</a></strong></h3>
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<p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/buzzwords-you-should-cut-from-your-linkedin-profile-2015-1" >10 Overused Buzzwords You Should Cut From Your LinkedIn Profile Immediately</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/words-that-hurt-your-credibility-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/prime-minister-tony-abbot-not-a-skite-2015-1Here's What Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot Meant When He Said He's Not 'A Skite'http://www.businessinsider.com/prime-minister-tony-abbot-not-a-skite-2015-1
Thu, 22 Jan 2015 07:45:48 -0500Peter Terlato
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54c0f10edd089586758b4569-1200-924/tony-abbott-orange.jpg" border="0" alt="Tony Abbott Orange"></p><p>Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s leadership and sales skills were called into question, live on air this morning, during a radio interview.</p>
<p>But his Aussie-ness was never in doubt, with the PM happy to drop some casual slang into the conversation, saying he’s “never been a skite”.</p>
<p>“Skite” is Aussie (and,&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skite" target="_blank">according to Wiktionary</a>, Ireland and New Zealand) slang for someone who bignotes themselves, but it’s pretty rare to find someone who actually knows what it means.</p>
<p>In Scotland (and Ireland again), it means to go on a drinking binge.</p>
<p>Etymologists might add it’s also known in some places as a variant of the&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scite#Old_English" target="_blank">Old English scite</a>, which means dung, or manure.</p>
<p>Regardless, Abbott’s “fair shake of the sauce bottle” moment came when a purported Liberal voter&nbsp;<a href="http://www.3aw.com.au/news/liberal-voting-caller-caller-andrew-calls-tony-abbott-the-worlds-worst-salesman--3aw-neil-mitchell-20150121-12vlxf.html" target="_blank">called 3AW Mornings radio and told Abbott he was the “world’s worst salesman”</a>.</p>
<p>When the PM asked the caller to specify his grievances with the current state of government, he put it down to Abbott’s poor competence.</p>
<p>“Prime Minister, it’s the way you do things, like the Medicare thing, with education, you’ve done so many backflips,” the caller, Andrew, said. “People don’t know where you’re going.</p>
<p>“Business is saying there’s roadblocks because there’s no direction, no leadership and that concerns me as a Liberal voter.”</p>
<p>Abbott responded by saying, “I’ve never been a skite… never intend to be a skite.”</p>
<p>“I would rather under-promise and over-deliver. I would rather let the facts speak for themselves.”</p>
<p>Abbott relayed a number of “facts” in support of his government’s efforts.</p>
<p>“The facts are that jobs growth in Victoria was strong last year. We had 80,000 new jobs in Victoria in 2014, but we only had 8,000 new jobs in Victoria in 2013,” Abbott said.</p>
<p>“In 2013 we had 1.9 per cent economic growth. Now we’ve got 2.7 per cent economic growth, so this is a government which is doing something right.”</p>
<p>Earlier in the broadcast, the Prime Minister was forced to defend his leadership, describing skepticism surrounding his command as “absolute nonsense” while citing his “solid record of achievement”.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/prime-minister-tony-abbot-not-a-skite-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/idioms-from-world-languages-2015-1The Origins Of 10 Everyday Expressions From World Languageshttp://www.businessinsider.com/idioms-from-world-languages-2015-1
Thu, 15 Jan 2015 11:19:00 -0500Matt Lindley, HotelClub
<p>We use idioms to pepper our speech and writing, often without even realising we’re doing it. These odd little phrases are used to express a sentiment other than their literal meaning. It doesn’t really rain cats and dogs, as the world and his wife knows.</p>
<p>I’ve always been fascinated by foreign idioms; they give us a unique insight into the culture that uses them. Did you know that in German you can say “to live like a maggot in bacon” instead of “to live the life of luxury”? Idioms can tell us a lot about what matters to a nation. They’re a window to the soul.</p>
<p>We wanted to explore the world in all its linguistic glory, so we asked artist and illustrator&nbsp;<a href="http://www.marcusoakley.com/" target="_blank">Marcus Oakley</a>&nbsp;to draw some of his favourite idioms from across the globe. We hope they inspire you to learn the local idioms next time you travel.</p>
<h2>1. “Into the mouth of a wolf”</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;Italian<br>Translation:&nbsp;<em>In bocca al lupo</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;Good luck!</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b3969beddaa68c1aa25-950-672/1-italian-idiom.jpg" border="0" alt="1 italian idiom"></p>
<p>“Into the mouth of a wolf” is a very popular Italian phrase that’s similar to our “break a leg,” and perhaps much more understandable. You’d say it to someone facing a tough trial or nerve-wracking performance, such as an exam or a concert. But don’t say “thank you” in response: it’s bad luck. The correct answer is “may the wolf die.”</p>
<h2>2. "Not my circus, not my monkey"</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;Polish<br>Translation:&nbsp;<em>Nie mój cyrk, nie moje malpy</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;Not my problem</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b39ecad04f24555d9a9-950-672/2-polish-idiom.jpg" border="0" alt="2 polish idiom">While more cryptic than just saying “not my problem”, the Polish expression “not my circus, not my monkeys” makes perfect sense, and is a lot more fun to say. Poland can offer a traveller some difficulties in terms of cultural customs — holding your thumbs means good luck, not crossing your fingers, for example. You’ll probably need a bit of luck, what with all those monkeys running around.</p>
<h2>3. “To have a wide face”</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;Japanese<br>Translation:&nbsp;<em>Kao ga hiro i</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;To have many friends&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b39ecad04bb3f55d9af-950-672/3-japanese-idiom.jpg" border="0" alt="3 japanese idiom"></p>
<p>We all know that Asian countries have the best proverbs. Well, they also have some fantastic idioms, too. “Having a wide face” means you have lots of friends and are well liked. It could be based on reality, as men with wide faces supposedly&nbsp;<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2705484/Could-having-fat-face-make-RICH-Men-wide-faces-earn-1-300-colleagues-narrow-heads-study-claims.html" target="_blank">earn more money</a>&nbsp;and are&nbsp;<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2552682/Why-women-attracted-men-wide-faces-dont-tend-husband-material.html" target="_blank">more attractive to women</a>. Or it could come from the Chinese concept of “face”, which is where we get our own term, “losing face,” from.</p>
<h2>4. “To have the midday demon”</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;French<br>Translation:&nbsp;<em>Le démon de midi</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;To have a midlife crisis</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b39eab8eaea2755d9ae-950-672/4-french-idiom.jpg" border="0" alt="4 french idiom"></p>
<p>For the funniest idioms, look no further than our cross-channel neighbors in France. “To have the midday demon” means “to have a midlife crisis.” And what better way to explain reaching 50 and suddenly swapping the suit and tie for a ponytail and a Harley than demonic possession?</p>
<h2>5. “To feed the donkey sponge cake”</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;Portuguese<br>Translation:&nbsp;<em>Alimentar um burro a pão-de-ló</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;To give good treatment to someone who doesn’t need it</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b396bb3f77818f525b0-950-672/5-portuguese-idiom.jpg" border="0" alt="5 portuguese idiom">Portugal’s variation on the Bible’s advice about pearls and swine, “don’t feed the donkey sponge cake,” means don’t give fine treatment to those who don’t deserve it. After all, why should we have to sit around chewing raw oats because some idiot’s given all the cake to the donkey?</p>
<h2>6. “A cat’s jump”</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;German<br>Translation:&nbsp;<em>Katzensprung</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;A short distance away</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b396da811971b360981-950-672/6-german-idoim.jpg" border="0" alt="6 german idoim"></p>
<p>“A cat’s jump” is in the minority of German idioms in that it doesn’t refer to either beer or sausages.&nbsp;Katzensprung&nbsp;simply means a short distance away, or “a stone’s throw” as we’d say in English. Use whichever one you’d prefer, it’s all sausages to us.</p>
<h2>7. “To give someone pumpkins”</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;Spanish<br>Translation:<em>&nbsp;Dar calabazas a alguien</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;To reject somebody</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b3969bedd7e67c1aa28-950-672/7-spanish-idoim.jpg" border="0" alt="7 spanish idoim"></p>
<p>As we’re sure you’ve guessed, “to give someone pumpkins” means to turn somebody down. It’s just one example of the colourful idioms you’ll find in Spain, and it originates from Ancient Greece, where pumpkins were considered an anti-aphrodisiac. Try eating one seductively, and you’ll probably see why.</p>
<h2>8. “To ride as a hare”</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;Russian<br>Translation:<em>&nbsp;Exatj zajcem</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;To travel without a ticket</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b39eab8ea4e2d55d9a7-950-672/8-russian-idiom.jpg" border="0" alt="8 russian idiom"></p>
<p>As home to the Trans-Siberian Railway, Russia probably has quite a few train-related idioms. “To ride as a hare” means to ride the train without a ticket, as we all know hares are prone to do. Apparently it comes from the fact that fare-dodgers would shake like a hare whenever the ticket inspectors would come round.</p>
<h2>9. “To let a frog out of your mouth”</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;Finnish<br>Translation:<em>&nbsp;Päästää sammakko suusta</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;To say the wrong thing&nbsp;<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b396bb3f71218f525b1-950-672/9-finnish-idiom.jpg" border="0" alt="9 finnish idiom"></p>
<p>Finnish idioms have a lovely tone to them, often referencing Mother Nature and their homeland. Having “rye in your wrists” means to be physically strong, for instance, while “own land strawberry, other land blueberry” reflects Finns’ love for the motherland. “Letting a frog out of your mouth” means to say the wrong thing, which makes sense, as spitting a frog at someone is almost always the wrong thing to do.</p>
<h2>10. “To have a stick in your ear”</h2>
<p>Language:&nbsp;Danish<br>Translation:&nbsp;<em>At have en pind i øret</em><br>Meaning:&nbsp;To not listen to someone&nbsp;</p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54b57b396da811b31f360981-950-732/10-danish-idiom.jpg" border="0" alt="10 danish idiom"></p>
<p>A lot of Danish idioms will sound familiar to us — “not the sharpest knife in the drawer,” for instance. But Danes would “go absolutely cucumber” at you if you were to “have a stick in your ear.” This means to not listen to someone, which can be a very bad thing to do to somebody with a strong Viking ancestry.</p>
<h3>More From HotelClub:</h3>
<p><a href="http://www.hotelclub.com/blog/how-to-get-a-job-in-the-travel-industry/">How To Get A Job In The Travel Industry</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.hotelclub.com/blog/the-perils-of-speaking-a-foreign-language/">The Perils Of Speaking A Foreign Language</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.hotelclub.com/blog/5-adventurous-reasons-to-travel-to-singapore-with-your-kids/">5 Reasons To Travel To Singapore With Your Kids</a></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/gruesome-origins-of-innocent-phrases-2014-7" >7 Everyday Phrases With Sinister Origins</a></strong></p>
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<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/idioms-from-world-languages-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-google-turns-smartphones-into-real-time-translators-2015-1Google Is Turning Smartphones Into Real-Time Translatorshttp://www.businessinsider.com/afp-google-turns-smartphones-into-real-time-translators-2015-1
Wed, 14 Jan 2015 03:56:00 -0500
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54b629165afbd383088b4567-800/afp-google-turns-smartphones-into-real-time-translators.jpg" border="0" alt="An updated Google Translate application, seen on January 12, 2015 in San Francisco, enables smartphones to translate signs, menus and more into English"></p><p>Google began turning smartphones into real-time language translators — of both written and spoken content.</p>
<p>The California-based internet titan is hoping that along with making it easier for people to understand one another on their travels, Google Translate will serve as a useful tool for teachers, medical personnel, police, and others with important roles in increasingly multilingual communities.</p>
<p>On Wednesday the company began rolling out a new version of a free Google Translate&nbsp;application that, in part, lets people&nbsp;point Android or Apple smartphones at&nbsp;signs, menus, recipes, or other material written in French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, or Spanish and&nbsp;see it in English.</p>
<p>"We're letting you instantly translate text using your camera, so it's way easier to navigate street signs in the Italian countryside or decide what to order off a Barcelona menu," the Google Translate team said in a blog post.</p>
<p>The feature builds on Word Lens technology that Google acquired last year when it bought Quest Visual, a startup founded by former video game developer Otavio Good.</p>
<p>Word Lens uses video mode in smartphone cameras to scan scenes, identify writing and then display it as if it were written in English, a demonstration by Good revealed.</p>
<p>"If you are looking at a restaurant menu, it's nice to see which thing on the menu you are looking at so you can point at it when you order," Good said as he used his iPhone to scan and translate an Italian pasta recipe.</p>
<p>Word Lens in Google Translate operates independent of the internet, avoiding data charges from telecommunication service providers,&nbsp;he said.</p>
<p>The new Google Translate also features a conversation mode that uses voice recognition and the power of the internet cloud to translate both sides of a chat between people speaking different languages, the demonstration showed.</p>
<p>People pair any two of 38 language options, then smartphones listen in and convert them during chats. An automated voice speaks translations, which are displayed in writing on smartphone screens, while transcripts of chats can be saved.</p>
<p>Computing power for translating conversations comes from Google servers, so connections to the internet through&nbsp;Wi-Fi or telecom carriers are needed.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The team at Google is working to expand available languages and capabilities, according to Good.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-google-turns-smartphones-into-real-time-translators-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/graduated-from-grammar-mistake-2015-1Don't Let This Small But Increasingly Popular Grammatical Error Ruin Your Big Job Interviewhttp://www.businessinsider.com/graduated-from-grammar-mistake-2015-1
Mon, 12 Jan 2015 12:54:00 -0500Daniel McMahon
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54b406576bb3f7e06245458c-701-352/graduated%20from%20grammar%20mistake%20interview.png" border="0" alt="graduated from grammar mistake interview"></p><p></p>
<p>Imagine you're interviewing for the job of your dreams. You have a great résumé. You're prepared. You feel you'd be perfect for the job. You're full of confidence.</p>
<p>You come to the part of the interview where you discuss your education. And you say, "I graduated high school in 2000 and graduated college in 2004."</p>
<p><em>D'oh! </em>The interviewer closes his or her eyes and sighs. You have no idea what just happened.</p>
<p>Did you catch that ugly grammatical blunder? The problem is with the verb: <em style="line-height: 1.5em;">graduated.</em> In this context, it should always take the preposition <em style="line-height: 1.5em;">from.</em></p>
<p>Graduated<em> from.</em> You don't <em style="line-height: 1.5em;">graduate college.</em> <em>College graduates</em> you. You graduate <em>from</em> college.</p>
<p>I hear "graduated college" a lot, even among well-educated people. Don't make the mistake and risk lowering a potential employer's opinion of you.</p>
<div><div>
<iframe src="//giphy.com/embed/xcFIpK9cAOrBK" width="480" height="200" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe>
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<p>One Google search for "<a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=%22graduated+from+high+school%22">graduated from high school</a>," in quotes, gave me <strong>15.1 million</strong> results.</p>
<p>A Google search for "<a href="https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&amp;ion=1&amp;espv=2&amp;ie=UTF-8#q=%22graduated+high+school%22">graduated high school</a>" gave just <strong>750,000.</strong></p>
<p>"Graduated college" made it into the recent "<a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/12/30/372495062/the-npr-grammar-hall-of-shame-opens-with-i-and-me">NPR Grammar Hall of Shame</a>."</p>
<p>A story that appeared on USA Today's website had the headline "<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/personalfinance/2014/05/17/things-college-grads-should-know/9185717/">10 things I wish I knew when I graduated college</a>." Oops.</p>
<p>The Washington Post ran a story last week, also about education, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/01/08/scott-walker-has-no-college-degree-thats-normal-for-an-american-but-not-a-president/">with</a> both a "graduated college" and, in the author's bio, a "graduated from."</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/TheSlot">Bill Walsh</a>, who writes about English usage and is an editor at The Washington Post, says this much in his excellent book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Yes-Could-Care-Less-Language/dp/1250006635">Yes, I Could Care Less: How To Be A Language Snob Without Being A Jerk</a>":</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">I'm in the middle on this one. It's undeniably Jethro-esque (though increasingly popular) to say <em>He graduated high school.</em> Then again, I'm not one of those old-timers who insist it should be <em>He was graduated from high school.</em> Make it <em>He graduated from high school.</em></p>
<p>Sure, it's not the all-time worst thing you could say, but nonetheless it's incorrect usage in standard English.</p>
<p>Just realize that there are many people who find the omission of "from" ungrammatical. They will judge you. And it could cost you.<br><br></p>
<h3><strong>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-pack-suit-travel-2015-1">How To Pack A Suit So You're Not A Wrinkled Mess When Traveling</a></strong></h3>
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<p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/i-or-me-grammar-mistake-2014-12" >Way Too Many People Are Screwing Up The Difference Between 'I' And 'Me'</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/graduated-from-grammar-mistake-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-way-to-raise-bilingual-kids-2015-1The Best Way To Raise Bilingual Kidshttp://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-way-to-raise-bilingual-kids-2015-1
Sun, 11 Jan 2015 14:50:00 -0500Claire Bowern
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<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54b2cdc96da8110d69381079-600-/father-and-child-2.jpg" border="0" alt="father and child" width="600">New parents face a lot of pressures.</p>
<p>Until I became a parent myself, I didn’t realize the sea of conflicting advice that besieges parents on everything from feeding strategies to whether you need a baby Jacuzzi.</p>
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<p>One of the more important decisions is what language bilingual parents will speak to their child.</p>
<p>It’s natural to want the best for one’s child, and also to draw on one’s own childhood in parenting, but what if you speak a second language less fluently, one that you learned as an adult?</p>
<p>Is it worth speaking your less fluent second language to your kid?</p>
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<p>A case study in making this decision comes from&nbsp;<a href="http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/14/when-not-to-speak-your-second-language-to-your-children/" target="_blank">a post by Jim Kling</a>&nbsp;on the&nbsp;<em>New York Times’</em>&nbsp;“Motherlode” blog about whether to speak to his daughter in Tagalog (his wife’s first language) or in English (his own first language).</p>
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<p>Kling ended up deciding that he should use English, and that second language speakers did harm to children’s language acquisition. In coming to this conclusion, he drew on research on language development by people such as Erika Hoff.</p>
<p>Hoff&nbsp;<a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01660.x/abstract" target="_blank">compared</a>&nbsp;school test scores of Spanish-speaking immigrants to the USA who spoke Spanish to their children versus those who spoke English to them. While you might expect that the kids who spoke English at home would have higher test scores, that wasn’t true. Instead, the children being raised bilingually did better.</p>
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<p>Kling took away from that research that non-native speakers should not speak to their children in their non-native language, and that he was doing a disservice to his daughter by speaking to her in Tagalog rather than in English. He interpreted the findings as meaning that non-native speakers are poor role models for children learning two languages, because they use ungrammatical or unidiomatic phrases.</p>
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<p>As a linguist, I took away a very different message. I interpreted Hoff’s results as showing that the children who spoke English at home didn’t get much of a boost from their parents, because they were already getting a great deal of English input from the wider community.</p>
<p>That is, they were already learning English from their peers rather than primarily from their parents, and so the extra input of second language English didn’t make much difference to their fluency. On the other hand, the Spanish group were getting most of their Spanish input from parents (and perhaps other close family), and were benefitting from growing up bilingual.</p>
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<p>Why is mine the most plausible interpretation? Well, first of all, there's a lot of&nbsp;<a href="http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/cep-65-4-229.pdf" target="_blank">research</a>&nbsp;showing that&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/31/science/31conversation.html?_r=0" target="_blank">being bilingual is good for the brain</a>&nbsp;in general, in everything from multi-tasking to later onset of Alzheimer's.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54b2d02169beddbf0c36bd2b-1200-924/3033622590_070ffc4dc0_o.jpg" border="0" alt="reading to a kid" width="800">And secondly, research in sociolinguistics tells us that children learn language from their peers, even from a very young age: NC State linguist&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/wolfram.php" target="_blank">Walt Wolfram</a>, for example, has shown that peers start being more important linguistic role models than parents at around the age of four. (Of course, this remains true throughout adolescence, as any parent trying to understand textspeak can tell you.)</p>
<p>This is why even though my husband and I are Australian, our kids, growing up in Connecticut, will speak like Yankees—and why the kids in Hoff's study learned English from the surrounding community even when their parents spoke primarily Spanish to them.</p>
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<p>But what about this idea that non-native speakers produce a lower quality of input than native speakers? It makes intuitive sense—we know we make grammatical mistakes in a second language, so why wouldn't children learn them?—but it's not supported by the evidence.</p>
<p>In fact, kids who are exposed to early language from non-native speakers usually grow up to be full speakers of that language. For example, deaf children of hearing parents&nbsp;<a href="http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/people../newport/pdf/Singleton_Newport.pdf" target="_blank">benefit greatly</a>&nbsp;from early exposure to Sign Language from non-natively signing parents, and in fact end up almost as fluent as Deaf people who have Sign Language exposure from birth.</p>
<p>Another striking example comes from Daryl Baldwin and David Costa’s work on revitalizing the Native American language&nbsp;<a href="http://myaamiacenter.org/" target="_blank">Myaamia</a>, where children fluently use sounds and grammar that their parents, who learned the language as adults, still struggle with.</p>
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<p>What most people don't know is that not only are kids really good at learning languages, but they also have skills that help them learn from non-native speakers. For one thing, they learn very quickly who are good language role models: They can tell whether you're a reliable speaker or whether your input should be taken with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>Kids are also really good at extrapolating from the patterns they hear and filtering out noisy data, so even if you're not always conjugating your verbs correctly, they'll pick up on the general trend.</p>
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<p>So it’s not just about non-native vs native language input. The main thing children need is not so much a highly accurate linguistic role model, but rather several people to speak it with, and one strong way to do that is for the non-native speaker parent to speak the language too. Kling’s daughter will learn English whether or not it’s spoken at home.</p>
<p>But by the whole family speaking Tagalog, he’s providing a positive role model for multi-language use, as well as helping to create a supporting environment for Tagalog within the home and supporting his wife in using Tagalog with their child, especially as she grows older and starts being more influenced by her peers.</p>
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<p>So, Jim, speak to your daughter in whatever language you want. You won’t be doing her a disservice by speaking to her in both her languages. In fact, you may even be doing her a favor.</p>
</div><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-way-to-raise-bilingual-kids-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/i-or-me-grammar-mistake-2014-12Way Too Many People Are Screwing Up The Difference Between 'I' And 'Me'http://www.businessinsider.com/i-or-me-grammar-mistake-2014-12
Tue, 30 Dec 2014 16:14:00 -0500Daniel McMahon
<p>As we say goodbye to 2014, it seems as good a time as any to correct a language error that a lot of people continue to make.</p>
<p>It's using "I" where they should use "me" or vice versa.</p>
<p>If you already know the rule from grammar school, good for you!</p>
<p>Consider these two sentences:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><em>He's taking Jane and me to the park.</em></em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>He's taking Jane and I to the park.</em></p>
<p>Which is correct?</p>
<p><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54330afa69bedd900ef96aef-1200-632/central-park-sheep-meadow-looking-south-2.jpg" border="0" alt="central park sheep meadow looking south"></p>
<p>If you said the first, you're right:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>He's taking Jane and me to the park.</em></p>
<p>It's right because "Jane and me" are the objects of the sentence (the things being taken) while "he" is the subject (the thing that is taking). After all, "me" is the objective form of the first-person pronoun while "I" is the subjective form.</p>
<p>For an example of proper "I" usage, just flip the subject and object:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Jane and I are taking him to the park.</em></p>
<p>The distinction is fairly simple when you think about it — yet even well-educated native English speakers screw it up.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/BryanAGarner">Bryan Garner</a>, in his excellent book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Garners-Modern-American-Usage-Garner/dp/0195382757">Garner's Modern American Usage</a>," lists this among several examples of people getting "I" and "me" wrong:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">"My mother was busy raising my brother and I [read <em>me</em>]." / "Give Al Gore and I [read <em>me</em>] a chance to bring America back." Bill Clinton, accepting the Democratic nomination for President of the United States, 16 July 1992.</p>
<p>I come across this error a lot, in writing and in speech. I suspect one reason for this error could have to do with kids frequently being corrected when they say, for example, "me and Jane" — as adults tell them to put the other person's name first to be polite and to say "I" to be grammatical.</p>
<p>The result is that some people seem to think you <em style="line-height: 1.5em;">always</em> have to say "Jane and I" and that you can therefore <em style="line-height: 1.5em;">never</em> say things like "Jane and me." Language experts call this "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercorrection">hypercorrection</a>."</p>
<p>But again, that's just not right. For example, "I" is correct when used as a subject here:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><em>Right: Jane and I are eating pizza!</em></em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Wrong: Jane and me are eating pizza!</em></p>
<p>But "me" is correct when used as an object here:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em><em>Right: Jane is making me pizza!</em></em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Wrong: Jane is making I pizza!</em><em><br></em></p>
<p>Here's where confusion frequently happens:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Wrong: Jane is making Mike and I pizza!</em></p>
<p>Just because Mike is getting pizza too doesn't mean you change from "me" to "I."</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Right: Jane is making Mike and me pizza!</em></p>
<p>If it "sounds wrong" to your ear, that's probably because you've been saying it and hearing it wrong all this time. Or you had things like "Jane and I" hammered into you so often the correct way now sounds, well, incorrect.</p>
<p>The error is common enough that you might even get into a situation where someone tries to "correct" you! This has happened to me. And it's always so awkward trying to explain it. You come off as a pedant. But know that there are people judging you when you make this error.</p>
<p>Another explanation for the error might have to do with people incorrectly thinking that the "and I" sounds "more correct" or "more formal" than "and me." But that's plain wrong.</p>
<p>A trick for getting it right: No one would ever say "He's taking I." You'd always say "He's taking me." You'd never say "Jane is making I pizza." You'd always say "Jane is making me pizza." So even though you're mentioning another person "in between" the subject and the object — that is, you — don't incorrectly change "me" to "I." Just remove the other person — in this case Mike — and see if what you're saying sounds right.</p>
<p>All of these are correct, by the way:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Jane is making me pizza.</em><br><em><br>Jane is making Mike pizza.</em><br><em><br>Jane is making Mike and me pizza.</em></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>Between you and me, Mike makes delicious pizza.</em></p>
<p>OK, so if you'd like some practice, here's <a href="http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/page_62.htm">a short quiz</a> on "I or me?"</p>
<p>Coincidentally, as I was writing this post just now, I found this brand-spanking-new NPR list. And gee — look what's <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/12/30/372495062/the-npr-grammar-hall-of-shame-opens-with-i-and-me">No. 1 on the list</a>.</p>
<p>Also, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-flanagan-of-the-grammar-police-on-i-and-me/">Bill Flanagan</a> has a pretty good <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bill-flanagan-of-the-grammar-police-on-i-and-me/">explanation</a> on CBS.</p>
<p>Clinton got “I” and “me” mixed up, and he should have known better. One guy I’m giving a pass, however, is Jim Morrison. Recall the line from the Doors’ “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PECk9A-07Pw">Touch Me</a>” in which he sings:</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><em>“I’m gonna love you till the stars fall from the sky for you and I [read </em>me<em>].”</em></p>
<p>Happy New Year!</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO: &nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-pronounce-adidas-2014-12" >Americans Need To Stop Mispronouncing 'Adidas'</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/i-or-me-grammar-mistake-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-people-learn-multiple-languages-at-the-same-time-2014-12Here's How People Learn Multiple Languages At The Same Timehttp://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-people-learn-multiple-languages-at-the-same-time-2014-12
Tue, 30 Dec 2014 09:52:43 -0500John Stewart
<p><em><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54a23eda6bb3f7352b2f353e-1200-1091/langauges.jpg" border="0" alt="language dictionary"><a href="http://www.quora.com/How-do-people-learn-different-languages-like-Spanish-French-German-Arabic-Japanese-English-and-Chinese-at-the-same-time" target="_blank">How do people learn different languages at the same time?</a>&nbsp;appeared as a question on&nbsp;<a href="https://www.quora.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Quora</a>.&nbsp;Below we are republishing an answer from <a href="http://www.quora.com/John-Stewart-39" target="_blank">John Stewart</a>, who has studied more than 20 languages.</em></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">I disagree in part that the key is to learn languages at a very young age. That definitely helps, but I, as a native English speaker, didn't learn any language fluently until I went to college. </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">There, I began studying Spanish, Portuguese and Italian at the same time. For a few weeks, I was confused, but the truth is, the more you study them, the more they separate themselves in your own head.</span></p>
<p><span>I also disagree in part that it is best to learn them one at a time. That may be a good strategy for you depending on how much time you have to study and interact in those languages, but I found that studying as many languages as possible simultaneously is a good way to not only learn languages, but learn&nbsp;</span><em>how&nbsp;</em><span>to learn languages more efficiently.</span><br><br><span>Since beginning languages in college, I've been confused multiple times as a native Spanish speaker, a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, and a native French speaker. It took me four weeks of studying French to skip the next four semesters of language instruction at the college level. I have had meaningful interactions in at least 10 languages, and they are some of my best memories.</span><br><span></span></p>
<h3>The Best Way To Study Multiple Languages</h3>
<p><span>1) if you are at roughly the same level with each language, study them simultaneously. They will separate themselves in your head over a short period of time, as long as you dedicate enough time to internalize those languages.</span><br><br><span>2) if one language is stronger than the other,&nbsp;</span><em>study the weaker language in the stronger language</em><span>. This will keep you from depending on your native language and "shove it out of the way" to make room for you to think in either of your non-native languages. This may be a little confusing. Two examples:</span><br><br><span>When I lived in Argentina, I studied Sanskrit -in Spanish. It made my Spanish language much stronger, but if I did not understand something in Spanish, I was forced to understand it in Sanskrit.&nbsp;</span><br><br><span>When I studied Swahili, I wrote all of my notes in a stronger language that I had recently become conversationally fluent in: French. My weaker language, Swahili, improved because I was "shoving English out of the way" to make room in my mind for my weaker and stronger "non-English" languages. It also identified gaps in my command of the French language that I could fill in as I learned those expressions in Swahili.</span><br><span></span></p>
<h3>An Overview Of My Approach</h3>
<p><span><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/53065f4aeab8eaad3b16d246-1200-858/150314719.jpg" border="0" alt="tourists, map, women, confused, lost">1) for each of the languages that you want to learn, get the Pimsleur language courses. Commit half an hour every day for each language (that's how long each lesson is). This communicative approach is the fastest way to internalize a foreign language that I've found, and I've used it for at least six languages off the top of my head that I can think of, from Thai to Russian.</span><br><br><span>2) study each language in an academic setting. Take a course, if possible, for each language. Learn the grammatical structure to greatly increase your understanding, vocabulary and ability to express complex thoughts. Learning the grammar of the language is an excellent crutch to walk on until you internalize more of the language.</span><br><br><span>3) it pays not to be shy: seek out opportunities to engage native speakers or other language learners like yourself. Seek out ways to have positive interactions in that language: playing a sport, joining a book club, starting and ending business meetings in that language even if you aren't good enough to conduct business outside of English yet, etc. Each positive interaction reinforces your motivation for learning the language, validates the time you have spent studying it, and adds to your understanding of the language.</span><br><br><span>No strategy works 100% of the time. If you apply yourself and study at least a few languages simultaneously, and you cannot keep them straight in your head after a month or two, try the approach that other people have suggested: study one language, on a time, and see how that goes.</span></p>
<p><span><em><a href="http://www.quora.com/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Quora</a>&nbsp;is the best answer to any question. Ask a question, get a great answer. Learn from experts and get insider knowledge. You can follow Quora on&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/Quora" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Twitter</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/quora" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Facebook</a>, and&nbsp;<a href="https://plus.google.com/111127313006403749982/posts" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Google+</a>.</em><span><br></span></span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/reasons-for-learning-spanish-2014-2" >6 Reasons Why Everyone Should Learn Spanish</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-how-people-learn-multiple-languages-at-the-same-time-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-pronounce-adidas-2014-12Americans Need To Stop Mispronouncing 'Adidas'http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-pronounce-adidas-2014-12
Mon, 29 Dec 2014 15:50:00 -0500Christina Sterbenz
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/54936396eab8ea1b09b1e8cf-600-/adidas-12.jpg" border="0" alt="Adidas" width="600"></p><p>Americans have been <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/mispronounce-difficult-to-say-brands-2014-9">mispronouncing "Adidas"</a>&nbsp;since at least 1986, when Run-D.M.C made the brand famous Stateside with "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dA8DsUN6g_k">My Adidas</a>." The hip-hop group and most Americans say the brand name by emphasizing the second syllable: ah-DEE-das.</p>
<p>Germans, Brits, and other Europeans emphasize the first syllable: AH-dee-das.<strong style="line-height: 1.5em;"><br></strong></p>
<p>Since it's a German brand, we assume they're doing it properly, especially given the origin of the name.</p>
<p>Adidas doesn't mean anything in German but comes from the company's original founder, Adolf Dassler.&nbsp;His nickname was "Adi," with the stress on the first syllable, director of language programs at the Goethe Institut <a href="http://www.goethe.de/ins/us/ney/uun/mit/sdl/enindex.htm">Christoph Veldhues</a> tells Business Insider in an email. That plus a shortened version of his last name, "Das," gives us "Adidas." The emphasis naturally stays on the first syllable.</p>
<p>As for why Americans screw it up, linguists aren't sure.</p>
<p><a href="http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/fertig/fertig/">David Fertig</a>&nbsp;of the&nbsp;Society of German Linguistics pointed to the "lexical peculiarities" of English that make pronunciation unpredictable: "A lot of guesswork is involved when English speakers encounter new words first in writing and have to try to figure out how to pronounce them," he writes in an email.</p>
<p>German and English actually have similar intonation, according to <a href="http://www.germanic.ucla.edu/people/faculty/stevens/">Christopher Stevens</a>, an associate professor of Germanic languages at UCLA. "Both German and English usually put a primary stress on the first root syllable of native words," he writes in an email.</p>
<p>Americans may, however, wrongly identify Adidas as of Romance origin, instead of Germanic, Stevens speculates. "Since Americans often stress Romance words differently, they put the stress on the second syllable," Stevens writes.</p>
<p>Perhaps the British get it right thanks to increased exposure to continental Europe.</p>
<p>It should be noted that Adidas does not, as many people believe, stand for "all day I dream of sports." That's called a backronym — an acronym made to fit a word that already exists.</p>
<p>Don't feel too bad, though, Americans. Germans still can't say the word "<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/06/11/squirrel_germans_have_a_tough_time_pronouncing_that_word_though_to_be_fair.html">squirrel</a>."</p>
<p>Now check out more brand names Americans can't say:</p>
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